OPINION
Aston Villa fans must be getting excited for the play-off final after Dean Smith outlined why the club can go one better than last season and secure promotion at Wembley.
The Villans were defeated 1-0 by Fulham in last year’s showpiece event, but speaking to the Express & Star, Smith said that the new-look team has a better chance at going up this season.
“It was always going to be a tough one last year,” the manager said. “Fulham had a lot of momentum and were a very good team. They’d won something like 21 of their last 25 games.
“Villa didn’t really perform in the first half but they did in the second. They knocked on the door and didn’t quite get there.
“But this is a different Villa team now. You look at the front three – you’ve got 22-year-old Anwar El Ghazi, 21-year-old Tammy Abraham and 20-year-old Andre Green. So you’re got a freshness about them with a lot of youth and energy.”
And Smith is exactly right. El Ghazi has been solid, chipping in with five goals and six assists in 31 Championship appearances, while Green has added one goal and laid on another.
But Abraham has been the best of the three, netting 25 goals in 37 league appearances before adding a crucial penalty in the play-off semi-final first leg against West Brom.
On the face of it, that goal is the one that kept Villa in the tie, since West Brom were much better in the second leg and had to be.
But that is all over now, and Smith’s men have a chance to avenge last season’s defeat. It could be argued that the Villans go into it this year with much more confidence than they did last year, since there are no off-field financial problems overshadowing the tie.
This is simply 90 minutes – maybe more – in which Villa must go out there and give it all they can to reach the top flight again after two seasons away.
They face a Derby side who you would have to say have the momentum going into it having whacked four past Leeds at Elland Road – making an easier job of getting to the final than Villa did with their penalty shootout – but Smith’s men have the experience of losing last year.