Comment: Fixture schedule offers Aston Villa the chance to deliver more statements

All it needed was one result, one performance to change the mood around Villa Park.

One result, of course, does not make a season. Smith will have wasted no time over the past few days reminding his players of that.

By the same token, Villa’s 3-0 win at Derby prior to the international break was the kind of afternoon which could and really should galvanise a campaign. Villa’s ambitions for this season have always, at least publicly, remained big. They can never be anything but. Yet privately, prior to Derby, there was already the sense this might well turn into a period of rebuilding.

The speed at which Smith’s methods have begun to bear fruit has suddenly sent confidence levels soaring.

In a wildly inconsistent division, such optimism can of course be just as quickly extinguished and that should provide even more incentive to the Blues team which arrives at Villa Park tomorrow.

There is an argument this game is the last Villa would have wanted, so hot on the heels of their best display of the season.

Second City derby clashes are very rarely easy on the eye, regardless of the quality of the teams at the time. Reproducing the free-flowing football seen at Pride Park will be somewhat tricky. Then again, recent history would suggest this is a fixture of which Villa should have no fear. In more than 140 years of rivalry, they have never had it better against the team from the east side of the city.

Villa are unbeaten in 12 league encounters with Blues, a record which has only been achieved once before, way back in 1905.

Blues haven’t scored at Villa Park in their last five visits, a run which dates back more than a decade.

Their last meeting, back in February, was also the most one-sided for several years.

Smith, however, will be well aware the Blues team turning up tomorrow is a world-away from the one which surrendered so meekly nine months ago.

Just as he has breathed new life into Villa, Garry Monk has rejuvenated Blues.

The threat of a points deduction might continue to linger in the air at St Andrew’s, yet on the pitch the team play with a surety which suggests they too might be considered promotion dark horses.

Blues sit behind Villa in the table on goal difference alone and are, above all else, fiendishly difficult to beat. Only Middlesbrough, in second place, have lost fewer games.

It all adds up to what could be one of the most intriguing Second City derbies for several years.

For Villa, it arrives at the start of a big week which continues with Wednesday’s visit of Nottingham Forest, before a long trip to Middlesbrough for a rematch of last season’s play-off semi-final.

Having successfully made a statement at Derby, the fixture list over the coming weeks offers the chance for Villa to deliver a few more.

Standing in their way first is the small matter of their fiercest enemy.