Aston Villa’s Championship play-off hopes were dealt another blow on Saturday.
Tyrone Mings simply sent out a four-word tweet following Aston Villa’s 2-0 defeat at home to West Brom on Saturday, insisting that the club needs to stick together.
Dean Smith’s men’s hopes of reaching the play-off places in the Championship were dealt a major blow at the weekend as two goals in four minutes at the end of the first-half from Hal Robson-Kanu and Jay Rodriguez ensured that the Baggies strengthened their own promotion hopes.
The defeat leaves Villa 10th in the table, seven points adrift of the top six. Unfortunately for the Villans, their position could become much worse with six of the seven teams immediately above them boasting at least one game in hand.
Crucially, Derby County, Middlesbrough and Bristol City – the teams sat seventh, sixth and fifth respectively – all have two games in hand over Villa, so they surely need a flawless run until the end of the campaign to stand a chance of getting to Wembley for a second year in a row.
And with one win since the turn of the year, it does appear unlikely that that run of form is coming anytime soon.
Many fans are sympathetic to Smith’s problems given that he has not been able to make too many changes to the squad that he inherited from Steve Bruce. It must also be mentioned that there are also plenty of supporters wondering whether Smith is the right man – though it does appear that they remain in the minority right now.
That division that is slowly starting to develop is perhaps why Mings decided to send out a tweet that made little reference to Saturday’s loss…