Minto is surprised by how Dean Smith’s side has fallen away in the Championship in the past two months.
Sky Sports pundit Scott Minto has given a bleak assessment of Aston Villa’s current form, admitting he can’t see the club getting into the Championship playoffs as things stand and bemoaning how they’ve fallen away in recent weeks.
Dean Smith’s side had been firmly in the hunt for a top-six spot and, following their 1-0 win away at Swansea City on Boxing Day, they were just three points, but since then their form has tailed off, as can be seen here on Transfermarkt’s performance chart.
Particularly painful was this week’s 1-0 loss at Smith’s former club Brentford, a game in which Villa were comprehensively outplayed, and as it stands, the West Midlanders are now seven points adrift of the top six, and promotion optimism among the club’s supporters isn’t particularly high at the minute.
In a video on his Twitter account, Minto seemed almost rueful in criticising Villa, admitting injuries to Jack Grealish and Axel Tuanzebe have played their part, but stressed that he hoped they could pull it back.
Speaking about the Brentford game, he said: “Villa were totally outplayed, you look at the match stats at the end of it… if it was 2-0 it would have been a fair result… Villa had their chances and that’s the thing, when you’re not playing well you gotta make sure you take the chances when they come.”
Moving on to the general outlook of the season, Minto added: “It’s definitely a worrying trend, about two months ago I thought Villa would go for top two, they’ve really fallen away. They’ve really missed Grealish and Tuanzebe… at the moment, the way they’re playing, I don’t see it [playoffs], things have got to change.”
Minto then urged Villa fans to respond to what he said and some took to Twitter to have their say:
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