Injury-hit Villa in need of new faces

ASTON VILLA’S involvement in the FA Cup was over quickly, just as it seemed manager Dean Smith wanted. And escaping back to the Midlands with no further damage to his squad might have felt like a victory in the circumstances. Despite this tie being bottom of his priorities, it would still be a chance wasted if Villa did not heed the warning that this trip to a Fulham side, now back in the Championship, should have been. Fulham beat Villa in the 2018 play-off final at Wembley and followed it with a £100millionplus spending spree that backfired as their squad failed to gel and were relegated. Undeterred, Villa did similar last summer. Their lavish spending has also yet to be justified — they sit just a point clear of the bottom three after 21 games back in the English top flight. Wonder goals from Anthony Knockaert and Harry Arter for Fulham sent a weakened Villa crashing out of the FA Cup. But Smith’s focus, with the transfer market reopening last week, is on spending again after losing Scottish star John McGinn, reliable goalkeeper Tom Heaton and striker Wesley to serious injuries. Fail to get their business right and accusations of Villa making all the same mistakes as Fulham will be proved correct. Their need to comply with financial fair play rules will limit what Villa can do and Smith (below) refused to speak about specific names such as Joe Hart and Michy Batshuayi. However, he said: ‘This window is a narrow one but we would like to get players in quickly. We have a lot of games coming up, important games — and we want to try to recruit as quickly as possible. ‘We’ve got two semi-final games in the Carabao Cup against Leicester and five other games in January, so it is a really important month for us.’ The Villa Park club have already recalled goalkeeper Matija Sarkic from a loan spell at Livingston.