Aston Villa manager Dean Smith shares his thoughts on current unrest in Villa fanbase

Dean Smith was appointed the manager of Aston Villa on October 10th 2018 with the club placed 14th in the Championship.

Since that date, he has guided Villa back to the Premier League and helped them progress both on and off the pitch year by year.

But now, just over three years to the day and his tenure is on a bit of a tightrope.

Ten games in and his side find themselves just three points above the drop having lost their last four games in the league including most recently, a humiliating 4-1 defeat at home to West Ham United.

The recent form, along with no real signs of an evident turnaround being imminent have left the fanbase in limbo. There are those that are firmly in the “Smith out” brigade whereas there are also those that are confident a turnaround is right around the corner and feel he deserves the time to fix this mini crisis.

There have been the odd verbal rumblings at games but no clear protests towards the manager, yet. And Smith claims that that’s what is important to him, saying he understands fans wanting to win but only listens to what those match-going ones have to say.

“I think the will to win and be successful has always been there for any club’s fans. I think the exposure now, certainly with social media, probably makes it a lot bigger than it ever was before,” he explained.

“I’m quite fortunate that I don’t take notice of social media, I take notice of supporters that are supporting our team at games and I thought they really got behind us when we went down to 10 men and I think they were happy with what they saw.

“Obviously the third goal changed that but they could see a committed group of players that were trying to win a football game.

“I don’t look at social media so I’ve got no idea what they are saying. As I say, perceptions from outside a football club are very different from what they are within a football club.”