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Run of results for Aston Villa under Dean Smith shouldn’t be understated

By Dean Caffrey

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 20: Dean Smith, Manager of Aston Villa talks to Tammy Abraham of Aston Villa during the Sky Bet Championship match between Aston Villa and Swansea City at Villa Park on October 20, 2018 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 20: Dean Smith, Manager of Aston Villa talks to Tammy Abraham of Aston Villa during the Sky Bet Championship match between Aston Villa and Swansea City at Villa Park on October 20, 2018 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images) /
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It’s been a quite impressive first 2 months for Dean Smith since becoming Aston Villa manager. The fact that the club are only 3 points off sixth-placed Middlesbrough shouldn’t tell the whole story. In this article I will summarize what makes the last 8 weeks something to really make Villa fans proud again.

As I mentioned, Villa manager Dean Smith has been in the job for approximately 2 months now, which really isn’t all that long, but that’s 10 matches, which seems like a good sample size with which to analyze the team’s performance.

Aston Villa have garnered 18 points from a possible 30 since October 20th (Smith’s first game in charge) with 5 wins, 3 draws and 2 defeats. For a team chasing down the top 6 I’d say that is a fairly good sequence of form.

But when you run through the calibre of teams Villa have faced in that run, it makes the points total look a lot better.

Norwich (2nd), West Brom (3rd), Derby (4th), Middlesbrough (6th), Forest (7th) , Swansea (8th) and the small matter of a Second City derby against Birmingham have all been played in that stretch of 10 games. Only 2 sides in the bottom half (Bolton and QPR) played Villa in this time. To have won 18 points from these fixtures is no mean feat especially when it should have been 20 (won’t mention the West Brom game again!).

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During the early season with Steve Bruce in charge, the team just managed 15 points from a possible 36 when most of the opposition were in the lower half of the league table.

The style of play and amount of goals Villa are scoring is another pleasing aspect of this recent run (only West Brom have scored more than Villa’s 43). The fast paced style is suiting the attacker’s game too, Tammy Abraham has 12 goals already, Anwar El-Ghazi is like a new signing and Jonathan Kodjia only last Saturday came off the bench to save a draw with a late goal and drawn penalty kick.

With table toppers Leeds United up next on Sunday, it doesn’t get any easier for Villa; but if this recent upturn in results has taught us fans anything, it’s that Aston Villa don’t fear any team in this league.

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