Dean Smith promises no let-up from Aston Villa ahead of West Brom second leg

Villa will take a 2-1 lead into the second leg at The Hawthorns after goals from Conor Hourihane and Tammy Abraham sparked a late turnaround in Saturday’s first encounter at Villa Park.

The Baggies will also be without top scorer Dwight Gayle, who was sent-off having broken the deadlock.

Despite having the advantage, Smith does not want his team to sit back.

He said: “We’ll be going for the win. That’s how we want to approach games and how the players know I want to approach games.

“We’ve got used to winning football games so we don’t want to stop that.

“Albion’s approach might be different. The supporters will want them to play differently, I expect.

“It might make it a good game. If we can go and win the game again we will get through. The tie is not over after 90 minutes.

“We’ve won a game of football which we have got used to doing over the last few months. We need to win another game of football now.”

Smith heaped praise on Hourihane, after the Republic of Ireland international came off the bench to finally break Albion’s resistance with a powerful 20-yard drive.

The boss also delivered words of encouragement for Glenn Whelan, whose mistake allowed Gayle to open the scoring.

“Mistakes happen in games and unfortunately they capitalised on the mistake,” said Smith.

“Glenn didn’t shy away from the ball and tried to make things happen. So it was just one of those things.”

He continued: “It was a massive decision (to leave Conor out).

“I’ve been having tough decisions for the last four months.

“I’ve got four quality international midfielders there and unfortunately three doesn’t go into four, so one of them will miss out,

“It’s nice to have that quality and Conor has gone on to answer me in the right way possible.”