Aston Villa to review goalkeeping situation in January with Tom Heaton nearing return

The 34-year-old could feature on the bench for tonight’s visit of his former club Burnley, almost 12 months on from suffering a serious knee injury in last season’s reverse fixture at Turf Moor.

Villa have since signed Emiliano Martinez for £20million from Arsenal and Heaton, who joined for £8million in August 2019, has made clear his desire to challenge the Argentine for the No.1 jersey.

But with Euro 2020 on the horizon Smith is acutely aware of England international Heaton’s need to be playing regularly in order to catch Gareth Southgate’s eye.

Villa also have Jed Steer and Croatia international Lovre Kalinic on the books and Smith has admitted his goalkeeping department will be reviewed next month.

“Once we get to January we will have an idea of where we are at both with Tom and our goalkeeper situation,” said Smith.

“But we have five games before then and the important thing for Tom is to be doing all he can to get into the squad.

“When we get to next month we certainly have to look at our goalkeeping situation because we have got four of them. That is probably one too many to be carrying.”

Heaton, who has been building his fitness with regular appearances for Villa’s under-23s, earned the last of his three England caps in 2017 but was a regular in Gareth Southgate’s squads before suffering his injury.

Smith, who held talks with Heaton ahead of last weekend’s win over Wolves, continued: “We spoke about how important it is for Tom to be playing football and he has expressed his desire to challenge Emi Martinez.

“He has got to challenge Jed Steer too and he is fully aware of that. He is starting to put himself in contention now.

“Physically he is in a really good place, mentally he is in a really good place and he wants to compete and start pushing those in front of him.

“They are in front of him because he hasn’t been there to compete. Now he is there to compete.”