Dean Smith keen for Aston Villa to rediscover their attacking swagger

The boss believes a loss of confidence is to blame for the recent decline in performances and results which has left his team facing a fight to make the Championship play-offs.

Villa have won just one of their last eight fixtures and head into Saturday’s derby with rivals Albion in 10th, seven points adrift of the top six.

Smith enjoyed a strong start to life at Villa Park after replacing Steve Bruce as manager in October, with the team recording impressive wins at Derby and Middlesbrough during his first few weeks in charge.

But injuries to key players including Jack Grealish and Axel Tuanzebe has since blunted their progress, while Smith concedes he has has perhaps been forced to temper their attacking intent in order to fix a defence which has conceded the second-highest amount of goals in the division.

“The players can do it,” said Smith. “But unfortunately, results can affect performances and performances can then affect confidence. We’ve seen signs of that.

“One of the big things we needed to address was to become defensively sound - you only need to look at the goals against column. I think we’ve started to do that.

“I suppose we’ve sacrificed some of our attacking play.

“We’ve got to find the balance of good defensive displays but also get the fluidity of our attacking play back, too.”

Villa were beaten 1-0 on Wednesday by Smith’s former team, Brentford, a game during which they were outplayed for long periods.

Smith believes that serves as proof of the time required to implement a style of play.

He explained: “That Brentford team has been three years in the making. It’s very hard to all of a sudden turn something into a different way.

“Villa played in a certain way under Steve (Bruce) last season and it was successful.

“We all have different views, otherwise it wouldn’t be a good game to watch if everyone plays the same every week.

“Football is about opinions and I’ve got mine on how it should be played. It will take time to do that.

“I was very fortunate that when I came here I had the qualities of Jack Grealish, who could slip into different systems straight away and did very well at it.

“Axel Tuanzebe used to play in that system before and was very good at it, too. We’ve had to tweak it a little bit because of loss of form and injuries and other factors.”

Grealish has not featured since December’s 2-2 draw at Albion, a fixture which now looks like a watershed moment in Villa’s season.

In the five games up to and including the trip to The Hawthorns, they had scored 17 goals, yet have managed just 15 in the next 11.

Smith said: “Everybody will look at the Albion game. But I remember a week later in rain, hail, wind and sleet, we got a point against Stoke City.

“The week after we played Leeds United in what was a thriller and conceded in the last minute. Then we went to Swansea and it was more of a dogged display and got three points.

“For me, it’s been since the FA Cup game, we haven’t been as fluid in our play as we would like. That comes from a confidence.

“The one thing I can’t question about this group is their work ethic. I’ve questioned it once when we lost 3-0 at Wigan and that’s the only time I’ve had to.

“They work very hard but at times they need to be a little more free when they play.”

He continued: “It’s always frustrating at any club if you’re not playing how want them to. We’ve had spells when we’ve played really good football and times when we’ve had to sit back and defend. That depends on momentum swings at times in games and personnel.

“I think some of our better spells were with Jack Grealish in the team, Tuanzebe and James Chester too. Squads evolve and change with injuries or with form.

“I think if people see how Brentford play, they see how I want my team to play. We’ve seen spells of that but we need to get back to it.”