Smith and Aston Villa goalkeepers’ conundrum

manager, Dean Smith, admitted to facing a dilemma after the return

to his squad saying that he has to come up with a plan to fit in the goalkeeper in his team. Heaton could be returning to their game against

on Thursday, but having an excellent keeper like

, who took charge of Heaton’s position during his absence, will make it hard for Smith to make a decision.

“As I said to Tom, once we get to January we’ll have more of an idea of where we’re at, both with Tom and our goalkeeping situation.”

“We’ve got five games before then so the important thing is for Tom to make sure he’s doing all he can to get into the squad. Once we get to January we certainly have to look at our goalkeeping situation because we’ve got four goalkeepers at the place and that’s probably one too many to be carrying.”

Heaton, who wishes to earn a spot in

international team, cannot afford to be on the bench and as Smith added:

“I know how important it is for Tom to be playing football and he’s expressed his desire to come and challenge Emi Martinez, and I said he’s got to challenge Jed Steer as well. He’s fully aware of that.”

“He went and played against Leeds on Sunday for the 23s and he’s starting to put himself in contention now. Physically he’s in a really good place, mentally he’s in a really good place and he wants to compete now and start pushing the goalkeepers in front of him – in front of him because he hasn’t been there to compete. Now he’s there to compete.”

Smith also talked about

Martinez

, who has been wowing viewers with his performance.

Smith said:

“If you look at his performances from the end of last season to the start of this one, they have been very good. He won the FA Cup and the Community Shield with Arsenal and he’s come to Aston Villa and kept five clean sheets already, so he is certainly on the right path.”

“It’s not so much about the great saves, because all goalkeepers can make great saves. It’s making the great saves not look great, that’s a good way to describe a good goalkeeper. They make the game look easy.”

“If you look at Emi at the moment, his positioning is really good, his hands are really good. He doesn’t spill many, he’s got nice soft hands. You’ve got to have a desire as a goalkeeper to keep the ball out of the back of the net at all costs and we certainly seem to have that from Emi.”

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