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New on Sports Illustrated: West Ham United-Aston Villa Preview

Dean Smith is delighted with Aston Villa's performance so far this season but acknowledges there is a long way to go ahead of hosting West Ham.

Villa were in a relegation battle last term but head into this week's fixtures in ninth place, above Arsenal and only a point behind Tottenham and Chelsea.

Wednesday's opponents West Ham - also strugglers in 2019-20 - have been even more impressive, fifth despite losing to Liverpool on Sunday.

Villa were victorious at the weekend, beating Southampton, and Smith hailed his team's work ethic.

"It is not just about the centre-halves and the goalkeeper," he said.

"You look at the work-rate of the whole team, from Jack Grealish, Ollie Watkins and Ross Barkley. It is a real team effort at the moment."

Smith added: "It has been a really pleasing turnaround, from lockdown to where we are now.

"We have learned a lot of lessons but we are only at the halfway stage at the moment."

West Ham's Moyes will hope the visitors can be competitive against Villa, having come up well short at home to Liverpool.

"I thought we competed as well as we could but I don't think we played as well as we could," he said.

"They are a really good team and were just too strong for us.

"Liverpool are not a team we are challenging. We want to challenge in individual games but their consistency over the whole season will be much greater as we've seen over the year."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Aston Villa - Bertrand Traore

All eyes are on Jack Grealish every time Villa play, but Traore is quietly starring for Smith's side. He has scored in each of his past two Premier League appearances at Villa Park. The last Villa player to score in three in a row at home in the top flight was Darren Bent in November 2011.

West Ham - Craig Dawson

Centre-back Dawson was handed his chance in the West Ham defence at the end of December and Sunday's game against Liverpool - his sixth league appearance - was his first defeat. He has also scored twice, including a goal in that match, meaning he has 41 league goals since the start of the 2009-10 season - more than any other defender in England's top four divisions.

KEY OPTA FACTS

- Aston Villa have won just one of their past nine Premier League meetings with West Ham (D5 L3), winning 1-0 at Villa Park in May 2015.

- West Ham are looking to secure their first league double over Aston Villa since 2005-06. However, the Hammers have won just one of their past 10 Premier League visits to Villa Park (D4 L5) - 2-0 in February 2014.

- After a run of three consecutive home league defeats in which they conceded a total of nine goals, Aston Villa have kept a clean sheet in each of their past three at Villa Park. They last kept four straight home clean sheets in the Premier League in October 2001.

- West Ham are looking to win three consecutive Premier League away games for the first time since December 2018. The Hammers have already won more league games on the road this season (five) than they managed in the whole of 2019-20 (four).

- Moyes is unbeaten in his past nine Premier League matches against Villa (W4 D5), although he has only registered a league double over them once previously, with Manchester United in 2013-14.

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