Aston Villa v Arsenal: Dean Smith hopes Gunners’ Cup heroics could backfire in league

The Gunners arrive at Villa Park fresh from a surprise 2-0 win over Manchester City in Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final.

That came just three days after Mikel Arteta’s men had beaten champions Liverpool to keep alive their hopes of Europa League qualification through the league.

Smith hopes those recent exploits will make the visitors just a little weary heading into a match with huge implications for Villa, whose last match was Thursday’s 1-1 draw at Everton.

He said: “Arsenal’s last two results have been unbelievable. Mikel said it himself, against two of the top teams not just in this country but in Europe.

“To come through them with two victories and an FA Cup final place is a big tip of the hat to them. It’s a resurgent Arsenal but they played on Saturday and have only had a couple of days recovery.

“We’ve played Thursday so we’ve got a couple of days more recovery. Hopefully that will hold us in good stead.

“We have had it earlier in the season. We had a great performance and result to get through to the League Cup final when we played Leicester and then we didn’t perform on the Saturday against Bournemouth. Let’s hope that can happen with Arsenal.”

For Villa the stakes could not be higher. Watford, three points ahead of them in the table, take on Manchester City in the evening’s earlier kick-off and Villa will be relegated if they fail to match their rivals result.

Conversely, a heavy defeat for the Hornets and a Villa win would see Smith’s men climb out of the relegation zone ahead of Sunday’s trip to West Ham.

The late equaliser conceded at Everton had the potential to be a knockout blow for Villa yet subsequent defeats for Bournemouth and Watford, the latter taking the shock decision to axe Nigel Pearson with just two matches to go, have reignited hopes.

Smith will not seek to shield his players from the Hornets’ progress against City but insists the result at Vicarage Road won’t affect Villa’s approach.

He said: “It’s part of where we are at the moment. We need to know what the result is, but it doesn’t change the way we will approach the game, our approach is still to try and go and win it. We have to do that to even try to catch Watford.

“I was as surprised as anyone when I heard the news (about Pearson). I’m disappointed for Nigel, who’s a really good guy, and Craig Shakespeare, who’s a really good friend of mine, so I’m not going to comment too much about it.

“We’re in a relegation battle with them and I don’t want to give them any ammunition with anything I’ve said about it.

“It’s weird. I don’t like watching games where I’m wanting other teams to lose, but I’m sure there’s plenty who watch us and want us to lose.

“We had a training session on Sunday and you see the Bournemouth game, you think they’ve got an equaliser and then VAR stepped in and then we actually go up a place in the league. There was positive news in that but we’ve got to concentrate on winning football games.”

Though the pressure might be rising and Villa’s chances to escape danger decreasing, Smith is staying calm and sticking with the approach he believes has delivered better performances since the season resumed last month.

Villa’s biggest issue and the reason they remain in trouble has been their lack of killer instinct in the final third. Ezri Konsa’s goal at Everton was just their fifth in eight matches, with only one of those coming from open play.

Smith is confident they are still on the right track and will back on his forwards catching fire before time runs out.

“We’ve gone gung-ho earlier in the season and got found out against some of the quality opposition, so we have to be very mindful of what we worked through during the lockdown period, which was tightening up as a team,” he said.

“We’ve just got to make sure we’re hard to beat and we get the ball to the players with the quality at their feet to go and create something in the final third. I certainly feel over last few games we’ve got a little more fluidity. I’m sure the work we are doing in training will bear fruit.”