Jack Grealish wants Aston Villa to take inspiration from rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers

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Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish has admitted he’d like to emulate Wolves.

Aston Villa star Jack Grealish has told The Sun that he wants to use Wolverhampton Wanderers as an inspiration this season, despite their rivalry.

Villa drew 0-0 at home to West Ham United last Monday night, meaning their return to the Premier League has been a little patchy of late.

Villa have been decent defensively of late, conceding just one goal in their last three outings, but with just two goals scored in that time too, there are issues at the other end of the pitch.

Dean Smith needs to figure out that balance with his Villa side, and the first target for his side will be Premier League survival before hopefully pushing up the league.

Wolverhampton Wanderers had few relegation concerns last season, and actually finished seventh in the Premier League to secure Europa League football this term.

That hasn’t exactly gone well so far given that Wolves have taken just three points from their first five games and lost to Braga on Thursday night, but Villa captain Grealish wants to use them as inspiration.

Despite the rivalry between the two sides, Grealish feels that Villa need to look at Wolves as something of a prototype in terms of looking to finish higher than just above the relegation zone.

Grealish added that he spoke to boss Smith about the matter and they’re on the same page, believing they have the players to finish a lot higher than 16^th or 17^th – but they’ll need to find a few more wins first.

“You only have to look at your neighbours and that’s Wolves,” said Grealish. “They came up last season and look what they went on to do — they finished seventh and are in Europe this season. I know they haven’t had the best of starts in the Premier League this time but I think we can take some inspiration from that.”

“I spoke with the manager at the start of the season and we both said the same thing. We don’t want to come into the Premier League just to finish 17th, 16th. We want to finish as high as possible — and I believe we have the players to do that,” he added.