Smith encouraged by display that can drive Villa to safety
Club back in drop zone but coach sees positives Grealish furious as City winner allowed to stand
Dean Smith insists his Aston Villa players can avoid relegation from the Premier League after their battling performance at Wembley.
Smith’s hopes of winning the club’s first silverware in 24 years ended in bitter disappointment despite a defiant late rally from the underdogs.
Villa almost forced extra time, but Bjorn Engels’s header was brilliantly saved by Claudio Bravo, so Smith is now solely focusing on avoiding relegation back to the Championship.
The Villa head coach, players and coaching staff, held a team huddle after the final whistle, with Smith challenging his squad to end their campaign on a high by navigating a route to survival.
Results over the weekend conspired to drag Villa back into the bottom three, with the club facing a trip to Champions League chasers Leicester City a week today.
Smith said: “The performance level today is the standard we have to be. We were written off after our performance at Southampton.
“There’s not been too many of those performances and I asked for a reaction. I thought I got that against one of the top teams in the world.
“We take it game by game, we always have. We came here to win a final, to win a trophy, but we didn’t manage to do that.
“Our thoughts now go on to the Premier League. The fact we’re in the bottom three now after the results, we’ll take an awful lot of heart from that performance and, if we play like that against many teams in the league, we’ll get out of that relegation spot with the game in hand we’ve got as well.”
Manchester City had thrashed Villa 6-1 in the league earlier this year and were threatening to record another romp after taking a two-goal lead.
But £10million striker Mbwana Samatta struck before half-time to ensure the final was far from a onesided affair.
Smith said: “I told them in the huddle I was proud of their performance. Against Manchester City, you’re going to have to be patient and disciplined because you know you’re going to be starved of the ball for long periods. They do it to everybody.
“We saw that in the week at the Bernabeu but, if you can take them and go toe-to-toe with them, Bravo pulling off a great save from a header at the death to stop the game from going into extra time, that performance will get you wins against other teams in this league. We had that huddle at the end and yes, they were disappointed and they’ll feel that tonight, but they’ll wake up with pride tomorrow.”
Jack Grealish, the Villa captain, is understood to have been struggling with a calf problem picked up midway through the first half.
Afterwards, he launched a withering assessment of referee Lee Mason for his role in City’s crucial second goal.
Mason awarded City a corner when Grealish challenged Ilkay Gundogan, although the City midfielder
‘I asked for a reaction and I got that against one of the top teams in the world’
appeared to have the final touch.
Rodri then scored from the resulting corner to leave Grealish furious over the pivotal moment. The video assistant referee was also not consulted, despite being in operation at Wembley.
“Let’s be honest, the winner is a goal that should never have been a goal because it wasn’t a corner,” Grealish said.
“He just says the guy was already off the pitch when it hit him, but he clearly wasn’t. We came in here at half-time to try to get an explanation, but he didn’t want to give one.
“It’s obviously gutting, because a club like Aston Villa haven’t won anything for quite a long time now. We come here today for a final and we lose by a goal that should never have stood.”