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Dean Smith details what he told John Terry five minutes into Aston Villa defeat

Dom Toner

Fri 2 October 2020 9:15, UK

Aston Villa manager Dean Smith has revealed that just five minutes into his side’s cup defeat on Thursday evening he told assistant John Terry that it felt like a friendly.

Villa suffered a 1-0 home defeat against Championship opposition Stoke City, with the latter progressing to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.

Sam Vokes’ first-half goal turned out to be the winner for the underdogs Stoke and it took until the second-half for the Premier League team to spring into life with some meaningful attacks.

Smith admitted his frustration at his team’s first-half performance and he knew early on in the contest that his side were well off the pace.

They have missed a big opportunity to reach the quarter-finals, where they would have hosted Tottenham.

“I felt after five minutes I said to JT watching, it felt like a friendly. I know it’s different not having supporters in the stadiums, but that is there responsibility to make it into a proper game and we didn’t do that until half-time,”

TBR’s View:

Villa have made an excellent start to the new season, but they face going into the international break on a low and it could halt their momentum.

The Midlands giants previously won two cup fixtures to set up the tie with Stoke, as well as picking up six points from their opening two league games of the season.

Smith’s side host league champions Liverpool on Sunday in the final match before the international break and they could go into that off the back of back-to-back defeats.

There is a clear drop off in standard between the best XI and the rest of the squad, but overall fans need to be remember it’s a strong start to the campaign and they now have a team that should be looking up the league table rather than worrying about relegation.