Smith hailed for Ramsey’s rise at Aston Villa after BT reveal – pundit
Dean Smith deserves an enormous of credit for Jacob Ramsey’s development at Aston Villa, according to Danny Mills.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the ex-Leeds United and England full-back delivered his verdict after Ramsey scored his second goal for his boyhood club against Norwich City this week (14 December).
The 20-year-old told BT Sport after the game he had been watching clips of Steven Gerrard and he wants to be a goalscoring midfielder just like him.
The strike at Norwich was just Ramsey’s second goal for Villa and both have come in the Premier League this season.
“Surely he should have been doing this before, he’s not just done in the last few weeks, has he? It’s easy to say that,” Mills told Football Insider correspondent Connor Whitley.
“Let’s give some credit to Dean Smith for introducing a lot of these players and bringing in a lot of these young players through.
“It’s very easy to say ‘He’s doing great, he’s like Steven Gerrard because Steven Gerrard’s the manager’. If only we could all easily decide ‘You know what, I’m going to play like Lionel Messi because he’s the manager now’.
“There has to be more behind it than just being inspired by the manager and what kind of player he was.”
Ramsey has now played 43 times across all competitions for Villa after making his debut in the Championship under Smith back in February 2019.
The England Under-21 international’s only other game for the club came in the 3-1 loss to Arsenal earlier this term (22 October) in one of Smith’s final games in charge.
In other news, the ‘next Jack Grealish’ is already at Aston Villa as an ‘amazing’ claim is dropped.