Villa boss Dean: He’ll help us by getting into the mind of Mourinho

vVilla Park: Tomorrow, 2pm can overcome Jose. JT knows whoever we play against will be focused and looking to see what our strengths are and looking to nullify them.

“JT’s been his captain twice at Chelsea and they’ve won a lot of trophies together. They’ve got a deep respect for each other.

“JT’s spoken about the admiration he has for Jose as a coach and a person when they were at Chelsea.

“But the dynamics are different now. He’s on my bench and he’s sat behind me giving me bits of information I’ll need. We’ll try to plot the downfall of one of his excoaches.

“Jose’s a top coach as we’ve seen with all his teams fighting at the top of their respective leagues they’ve been in, but we’ll have to come up with a plan that can hurt Tottenham.”

Terry (right) has an earpiece feed to an analyst in the stands and relays information to boss Smith as well as giving his own opinion.

Smith added: “He is wired up to the analysts upstairs. We have a bird’s eye view as well as his own eyes.

“You get a feel in the game and my feel might be different to Richard’s or JT’s at times.

“So I like to know what they are thinking. It gives me an opportunity to run things through my head and process the information before we make decisions.” Smith has faced a Mourinho side once before when champions Chelsea visited his League One Walsall in September 2015 in the League Cup.

The visitors won 4–1, but Smith is hoping for a different outcome this time with Terry in his corner.

He recalled: “It was a bit of a mismatch because I was manager of Walsall at the time.

“He brought a strong side in the League Cup to the Banks’s Stadium and he had JT on his team. Thankfully I will have JT on my side this time.

“But it was a great night welcoming Chelsea down the Banks’s. We had them wobbling for little bits, JT even admits that because he was playing in that game.

“James O’Connor scored to make it 2-1 and we had a bit of a fightback, but the quality they had in that team told.

“Who could have predicted where we’d both be in fourand-a-half years?

“We’re both managing in the Premier League now, managing at the top table.”