Dean Smith has spoken of his sheer frustration after Aston Villa twice blew a lead at Crystal Palace. Tyrick Mitchell chested home with six minutes to remaining to complete the home side’s comeback after Villa went in at the break 2-1 up. Speaking afterwards,
Dean Smith said: “I’m bitterly disappointed and annoyed as well because I came in at half-time and felt it was a really strong performance and we looked like a really good team. We gave them lots of problems and were probably unfortunate not to come in more than a goal to the good. But, in the second half, they counter-pressed us a lot better and we never played with the same intensity and quality on the ball and that enabled Crystal Palace to get a foothold in the game. It sums up the last month or two! We’ve been better on the ball over the last four or five games and were good in the first half. We know their strengths of getting it up to Benteke in the box and Zaha down the side. We never dealt with that well enough in the second half. First half we were excellent and our football deserved more. The players are annoyed and frustrated because it was a game we should have won. We looked at the midfield area. I felt Ginny and Dougie were doing OK and we flipped JJ to a No.10 20 minutes into the second half and we got more of a foothold in the game. He had a couple of half chances. When we made the change to go 4-4-2 they scored the third. Cashy will be out for the season. He’s got a recurrence of a hamstring injury which is nowhere near as bad as the one he sustained before. Tyrone will return on Wednesday.”
The boss was asked about Mings’ absence given the centre-back’s leadership skills
Dean Smith said: “Yeah, we missed that possibly in the second half. Kortney (Hause) was excellent in the first half and won a lot of headers but he hasn’t played a lot of football of late, such as the fact we haven’t been able to arrange friendlies due to the pandemic. He was always going to tire. Kortney’s a very good player. He’s proved that time and time again.”
Elsewhere, Smith was asked about Villa dropping a Premier League-high 19 points in 2021 so far,
Dean Smith said: “Three of them games were against Liverpool, Man City and Manchester United.”
Quizzed on whether he thinks a worrying pattern has occurred, ]
Dean Smith added: “No. Not at all. You’re not going to go through a season holding onto leads that you’ve got. There’s always opposition players looking to fight to turn things around. As I said, three of the games that we’ve lost points against are three of the best teams in the land. I don’t see worrying signs because we get to December and everyone says how good we have been at holding onto leads. We can’t have it both ways.”
