Dean Smith’s Aston Villa suffered a demoralising defeat against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
Dean Smith has honestly stated that it is the job of the Aston Villa players to get the fans ‘behind’ the team when the atmosphere gets ‘tense’ following their 2-0 defeat against West Brom on Saturday.
In Villa’s recent home matches, they have lost to their Midland rivals, had to come back from three goals down to rescue a point against Sheffield United and registered a lacklustre win against bottom-of-the-table Ipswich Town.
During these matches, and particularly against the Albion, the Villa Park crowd have been vocal in the team’s poor performances as Smith’s side have only recorded two wins from their last 10 league matches.
Nonetheless, when Smith was asked to comment on the Villa Park crowd when it gets ‘tense’, he had this simple response:
“That’s our job to go out there and make the fans get off their seats and get behind us,” Smith told BBC WM Sport. “You can’t question the work ethic of the players, we just lacked quality at times and creativity hence be throwing the young kid on.”
During their recent league outing against Albion, Villa had just under 40,000 supporters in the stadium [BBC Sport] and it can become a difficult place to play if the home team get on their own players back.
After their playoff final run last season under the stewardship of Steve Bruce, it is looking highly unlikely that a top-six finish will materialise this time around.
At this moment in time, Villa are seven points behind the playoff places, but what makes matters worse for Smith is that a number of teams ahead of them have a game or two in hand.
For their next league outing, Villa will travel to Stoke City, with the recently relegated outfit sitting seven places and four points behind them in the Championship table.
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