Dean Smith wants defiant Carabao Cup final display to set the bar for Aston Villa’s Premier League relegation escape

Battling display made the pain of the defeat all the harder to take, but Villa boss believes similar performances from now to the end of the season can result in top-flight survival

Aston Villa went down fighting in their Carabao Cup final defeat (Reuters)

Dean Smith saluted Aston Villa’s defiant performance in the 2-1 Carabao Cup final defeat by Manchester City and predicted their courage will help them in their battle to beat the drop.

The West Midlands club kicked off Sunday’s showpiece while being in the relegation zone, but their display belied their top-flight position.

Villa enjoyed a brighter start at Wembley and despite finding themselves 2-0 down by the half-hour mark – the second goal materialising from a corner that should have been a goal kick – they refused to roll over for Pep Guardiola’s juggernaut.

Mbwana Samatta reduced the deficit heading into half-time and in the closing minutes of the game, Claudio Bravo pawed Bjorn Engels’ header onto the post as they pushed for an equaliser.

“I was really pleased with the reaction from the team,” Smith said. “I never felt like the game would run away from us. I could tell from the players’ body language on the pitch, their eyes when they went out there, that they were ready for this game.

“I showed them an awful lot of clips of our game at the Etihad earlier in the season when we went in at half-time at 0-0.

“There was a lot to take from that performance, knowing that we could cause them problems.

“I felt we caused them problems today. We threw caution to the wind at the end. Five minutes to go and we chucked Engels up front, Orjan Nyland went up for the corner and I thought it was him (with the chance) at first.

“There was never a sense of a backward step and that was what pleased me more than anything.”

Smith gathered his players in a huddle after the final whistle to commend their fight and remind them the standards they showed would prove more difficult for other teams to overcome.

"I told them I was proud of their performance," he revealed. “That performance will get you wins against other teams in this league.

“We had that huddle at the end and yes they were disappointed and they'll feel that tonight, but they'll wake up with pride tomorrow. The performance level today is the standard that we have to be.

“We were written off after last week at Southampton. We expected a reaction today and we got that. We were taking on one of the best teams in the world.

“We came here to win a trophy and we haven’t managed to do that. Our concentration now goes onto the Premier League.

“You can’t hide away that we’re in the bottom three now. If we play like we did today, then we’ll get out of the relegation zone.”