It came as a surprise to many when Dean Smith named his starting XI for Aston Villa’s opening day defeat to Tottenham Hotspur last Saturday.
Considering what had happened over pre-season, many Villa supporters expected, Fred Guilbert and Matt Targett to start in the fullback areas – but it wasn’t to be.
Instead, Smith opted to stick with the players that won him promotion to the Premier League – the senior duo of Neil Taylor and Ahmed Elmohamady.
In the game itself, both produced solid displays, but there have been calls for Smith to make changes ahead of Bournemouth’s visit to Villa Park this Saturday.
It would be a harsh call by Smith considering he opted to start with Elmohamady and Taylor on the opening day of the season, and the feeling that they didn’t do much wrong against Spurs to be dropped.
Either way, Villa did up conceding late goals towards the end of the game, which ended up proving costly, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a number of changes for the weekend’s game.
Despite Targett and Guilbert playing regularly during pre-season and producing strong performances. It seems as though Smith wanted to show loyalty to those players that won him promotion, hence his starting XI v Tottenham.
That could be changing pretty soon though as Villa search for their first points.
