Aston Villa won 3-1 away at Martin O’Neill’s Nottingham Forest at the City Ground to move to within two points of the Championship play-off places.
Dean Smith has indicated that Aston Villa exposed Ryan Yates in their 3-1 win away at Nottingham Forest on Wednesday night, while speaking to the club’s official website.
Villa recovered from Jack Colback’s third-minute opener to seal an impressive win at the City Ground; John McGinn scoring twice while Wolves loanee Kortney Hause netted his first goal for the club.
As a result, a Villa side who appeared to be in crisis just weeks ago are now just two points adrift of the play-off places.
A feature of their performance was the darting runs of Neil Taylor from left-back and Smith has revealed that Villa took advantage of Yates inability to cover the flank from his role in a three-man central midfield.
“We passed the ball really well. They played Ryan Yates tucked in off the line which allowed Neil Taylor to get a lot of the ball. I thought we found our outball really well,” said the former Brentford manager.
“They were fully concentrated and put in a good, professional performance.”
Welsh international Taylor has been in and out of the Aston Villa team since Smith took over with Hause, a centre-half by trade, often shunted into an unfamiliar left sided role.
But one of his most impressive performances in Aston Villa colours could help the former Swansea City man to silence some of his critics.
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