Aston Villa swept aside Derby County on Saturday, sealing a 3-0 Championship win at Pride Park.
Derby County have only lost twice at home in the Championship this season but, on both occasions, they were comfortably outclassed.
A 4-1 defeat against Leeds United in August left Pride Park stunned. And Aston Villa did their very best to match Marcelo Bielsa’s side on Saturday, cruising to a 3-0 win in the East Midlands.
This was arguably Villa’s best display so far in what has been a frustrating season; John McGinn, Tammy Abraham and Connor Hourihane scoring to truly kick-start the Dean Smith regime.
In quotes reported by the Birmingham Mail, Derby midfielder Tom Huddlestone has made a bold prediction about Aston Villa’s fortunes having seen them up close.
“I thought Villa played well,” said Huddlestone, who started against the Second City club at the weekend.
“They’ve got a new manager (Dean Smith) who has completely different ideas to the previous manager (Steve Bruce), so it might take them a bit of time for them to fully get his ideas.
“But on this performance, they could be there or thereabouts come the end of the season.”
Villa moved up to eleventh in the table with arguably their most impressive result of the campaign and are now sitting just four points adrift of the play-off places.
Derby, meanwhile, are in sixth place and will hope this performance was simply an off-day. Frank Lampard’s side travel to Sheffield Wednesday next time out.
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