Dean Smith is preparing his Aston Villa players for Sunday’s trip to the Emirates, just two months after beating Arsenal in a behind-closed-doors friendly. The head coach admits Villa “know a lot about” Mikel Arteta’s men, a side who were in Europa League action last night with an Arsenal second-string beating Molde 4-1. Ahead of Sunday’s Premier League fixture, Smith held his press conference earlier today and discussed a range of topics from Jack Grealish’s fresh England call-up to the latest injury news.
Dean Smith said “He took over and they went and won the FA Cup. They have started with good performances, so he’s done a fantastic job. It was a big win for us [last season] that helped us to retain our Premier League status, and we played them in pre-season, so we know a lot about them. It will be a really tough game, they had a really good result against Manchester United last week and Molde last night. I spoke a couple of years ago and I said that he [Jack Grealish] would be judged on goals and assists, and he’s improving in those aspects. He’s got four goals and four assists already, so he’s doing something right. He’s working extremely hard, he stays humble and he needs to keep doing that. Our trust goes out to the international managers to manage our players appropriately. We still feel that we’ve had a good start, the last two results have been disappointing. The players are still confident, that’s for sure, they want to put it right. We believe that we have a really good squad and players that can play the way that we want to play. Bertrand [Traore] came off and he’ll be struggling for Sunday, he won’t make it. He’ll definitely be back after the international break.”
