Aston Villa fans are feeling confident about their chances this season despite the disappointing loss to Norwich on Tuesday.

A double from Jordan Rhodes was enough to overturn Villa’s first half advantage at Carrow Road.

Despite this, the Villa faithful will feel reasonably pleased with the start Dean Smith has had at the club, which saw his side defeat Swansea at the weekend.

Next up for Villa come a couple of fixtures against sides in the bottom half of the table, so Smith will be hoping to pick up a couple more wins.

However, as ever when a new manager joins a club, it takes a few months for them to properly settle and Smith will be hoping January comes around quick so he can spend some money and get some of his desired players in.

The scouting team will already be well in the process of identifying targets for January and even the summer to ensure Villa get the men they want.

Here, we look at a trio of players Smith will surely send his scouts to watch ahead of the window…

Dean Smith enjoyed a very positive few years at Brentford and one of the standout players from his time at Griffin Park was Jota. The Spaniard scored an impressive 23 goals in 78 appearances at Brentford, before moving to Birmingham.

He remains as one of the Blues’ best players and Chris Wilder’s Sheffield United have been keen admirers of the creative player.

It may be hard to strike a deal with bitter rivals, but if the decision is on the player, Jota may fancy the chance to be reunited with the boss who developed his game well at Brentford.

Tom Heaton has had a weird decline in the past few years.

The Burnley ‘keeper was touted to be the man to take the England number 1 shirt from long serving shot-stopper Joe Hart, who was then in the first chapter of his Manchester City exile under Pep Guardiola.

Fast-forward a few years, Joe Hart is number one at Burnley, while Heaton is seemingly the third choice goalkeeper after Nick Pope’s impressive campaign last season.

Neither of Villa’s goalkeepers have been anything special this season and Smith may turn to the abilities of Heaton to fix this.

Whether Smith has an unwritten respect pact whereby he can’t sign Brentford players is unknown, but if not, surely he must target Ollie Watkins.

Smith brought the forward to the Bees from Exeter and he was one of the best players during the past year or so at Griffin Park.

He would add a different dynamic to Villa’s play - he may still be young, but he has bags of experience from his time in the lower leagues with Exeter, so he would certainly add a creative element to Villa’s play, which at times has been lacking.

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