Dean Smith has opened up about Aston Villa’s “sweet spot” in terms of transfer dealings, having explained how he’s looking to improve his squad this summer. The head coach was given £155 million to spend in 2019 and a further £105 million last summer, with Villa building a fresher – and more talented – squad of players as a result. Villa transfer dealings will be finalised by sporting director Johan Lange, with the Dane working in tandem with CEO Christian Purslow, head of recruitment Rob Mackenzie and Smith.
Dean Smith said: “In terms of our recruitment, we talk about the sweet spots that we’re looking for, which is that the players have Premier League experience and are [ideally] British because there is no adaptation risk at all. Then you’re looking at experience of the top-five leagues. That’s the kind of process we got through when we’re looking to recruit. I’m not sure whether (signings) will be bargains because everybody overvalues their players, that’s normal,” Smith added, when asked about Villa looking at cute and clever transfers. “I think there has certainly been a pinch in the EFL. There have been no supporters and that is a big revenue generator for them, whereas obviously the Premier League get a massive slice of the television money. We’re always looking for targets and hoping we can go and grab bargains, that’s what we’ll be hoping to do. We’ve got a shopping list and we’ll try to invest wisely. We proved last season with the ones we got in – such as Ollie Watkins, Emi Martinez, Betrand Traoré and Matt Cash – that we were quite astute. Hopefully we can do more of the same. We feel we have a good squad in place. Going back again, we had 13 new signings that first summer heading into the Premier League. That is too many if you want to be successful. We had four new permanent signings at the start of this season and Ross Barkley on loan. We thought that help us progress again. We feel again let’s go and get quality over quantity this year. We dropped off massively when Jack came out of the team in terms of our creativity, so we know that is an area we must improve on to help Jack when is playing or if he has to miss a game or two.”
Assessing his squad ahead of his and Villa’s third campaign in the Premier League following promotion in 2019, Smith, aged 50, expects his stars to kick on once again as Villa look to gatecrash those European spots.
Dean Smith said: “I’ve always said the biggest thing for me is to make sure we improve the players and I think we’ve done that on a regular basis. Our job is to make them better. If they become better individually, then we become better as a team. When we become better as a team, we win more football games. It’s as simple as that. We knew the talent that people like Matt Targett had when we brought them in. We wanted him to make him more robust, more endurance-based and he’s certainly become that type of player. I think Players’ Player of the Year is one of the best awards you can win because it’s from the people in that dressing room. Emi Martinez has done magnificently, but Matt Targett has consistently got better and better. I could say the same about Ezri Konsa, and Matty Cash. We weren’t sure how the step up would be for him and he’s surprised all of us, and he’s somebody who can get better and better again. I think Jack (Grealish) got better this season as well. We saw glimpses of it last season but this season he has been the real deal. He showed a consistent level that showed he’s up there with the top five players in this league, I believe. But, as I’ve said, we want progression again. That is why we have a younger squad because we know these players will get better and getting them on longer term contracts is really important. It is all right bringing in young players and building their value but I’m hopeful players will come to Aston Villa, like Ezri Konsa, and spend six, seven or eight years here. If they are doing that it means the club is progressing. That is an important part of the plan moving forward. So, in general, there has just been a progression and development of players that has enabled us to go and beat Liverpool, do the double over Arsenal, beat Tottenham and Chelsea, which were things we found hard to do last season. That has given us the opportunity to collect a lot of points.”
