“That’s for Ross to get back into the team” – Dean Smith

The loanee

Ross Barkley

has been out of action due to a hamstring injury he sustained a month ago. He will probably appear in the clash against

and is going back to training on Wednesday.

are sitting ninth on the

table and are five points short of the top five.

Dean Smith

said: “

That’s for Ross to get back into the team and he’ll know that

.

“

I want the problem of having top players like Barkley and (Ezri) Konsa coming back to full fitness and pushing me in terms of getting back into the starting line-up.

“It was a really good performance on Sunday against West Brom and followed on from a really good performance against Burnley.

“The only thing missing from the 27 shots against Burnley was converting them.

“It looked similar against West Brom until the 80th minute, but we showed some really good patience within the game, and – at the moment – we’re looking a really good team

.”

The 27-year-old has joined Villa on one season loan along with Ollie Watkins, Bertrand Traore, Matty Cash, and Emi Martinez in the summer. Villa boss Dean Smith is delighted with their performance.

“

The last two matches have proved it is there,

” he said.

“

We had four new starters against Burnley in (Kortney) Hause, (Anwar) El Ghazi, Elmo (Ahmed Elmohamady) and (Marvelous) Nakamba, and they all played really well in that game.

“Kortney and El Ghazi have continued that along with Traore, who’s probably only played 300 minutes or so this season.

“He played really well against West Brom too, so we’ve proved we have that depth and the ones who haven’t been regular starters this season have shown they’re ready to take their chances when the opportunity comes around.”

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