Express & Star

Dean Smith: Promotion - not records - is what matters at Aston Villa

Dean Smith has claimed breaking records will mean nothing if Villa don’t end the season winning promotion to the Premier League.

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Villa have won their last eight Championship games and can equal a club best mark of nine, set in 1910, by beating struggling Bolton today.

But Smith’s focus is entirely on the race for a play-off spot as Villa, who also host Millwall on Monday, look to cement a top-six finish over the Easter weekend.

The boss said: “The record wouldn’t mean an awful lot unless we get promoted.

“The ambitions here are to get promoted to the Premier League.

“We need to make sure we are in the play-offs first to give ourselves a chance of that.”

Smith, a lifelong Villa fan, continued: “I would have great pride in equalling this kind of record but also know there is a longer term view involved.

“I would probably look back in time and think what a good record that was if we do it. But we have to go on and beat Bolton first.”

The winning run has transformed a season which looked all but over less than two months ago, when Villa sat mired in mid-table.

Smith claims he was always confident their fortunes would turn.

He said: “I never stopped believing but felt we need to stop concentrating on the top six because that is all anyone ever talks about, such are the expectations of this football club. We had to just break it down into one game at a time and that was the message we gave to the players.

“We have been through periods where we have had an awful lot of injuries.

“We had a lack of defensive quality or just haven’t had centre-halves.

“James Chester was playing at one stage and he had trained two days in eight weeks and had played nine games.

“That was a problem we were having to deal with.

“We feel we put that right in January and that has certainly helped.

“Having the likes of Jack Grealish and Henri Lansbury coming back from injury has also helped.

“We knew we had to get through a difficult period where we had a lack of players but we have come through that.”