Aston Villa need to avoid defeat at West Brom if they want to reach the play-off final.
Jimmy Shan has seemingly advised Aston Villa in how they can approach their second leg encounter against West Brom on Tuesday. The Baggies boss has claimed that Villa can use ‘some of the tactics’ they deployed at Villa Park on Saturday.
Dean Smith’s side scored two goals in the final 15 minutes to overturn Albion’s first-half strike, with the away team playing five men at the back and sitting deep throughout the match.
After the game, Smith insisted that his team won’t play like Albion did at Villa Park for the return leg and he will be urging his team to go on and ‘score more goals’, as posted by Villa’s official Twitter account.
But speaking to Sky Sports Football in his post-match interview (11/05/2019), Shan had other ideas as he made this stunning claim as to what Vill should do.
“Our approach [at the Hawthorns] is going to have to be very, very different because we need to win a game,” Shan told Sky Sports Football. “They can maybe adopt some of the tactics we did [at Villa Park] in trying to deny and deny space and things like that.
“But we have to be on the front foot now and we’ve got a mentality to win a game of football.”
Albion will be fully aware that if they are to progress through to Wembley then they have to win the Tuesday night showdown at the Hawthorns.
The last time the teams met at Albion’s ground, Villa recorded a 2-2 draw with Anwar El Ghazi netting a double. The same scoreline and result would see Villa making yet another Wembley trip.
Shan will have to change his starting XI and his tactics for the up and coming game because his team needs to win and they’ll be without the suspended Dwight Gayle.
The Newcastle United loanee received two yellows at Villa Park, the first for time wasting and the other for lunging at goalkeeper Jed Steer.
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