The feeling heading into Aston Villa's game against Swansea is that of a new era at Villa Park.

Dean Smith replaced the manager everyone loved to hate in Steve Bruce last week and Villa fans are hoping this is the start of the clubs rise back to the upper echelons of English football.

The ex-Brentford manager doesn’t boast the experience that Bruce may have had in management, so he will have a big task on his hands as he gets to grips with managing his boyhood club.

Smith will breathe fresh air into a club in desperate need of new ideas and practices.

Villa are 15th in the Championship, but looking ahead, a good run of form could see them climb the table.

It won’t be easy, with tricky fixtures against Swansea and Norwich to negotiate, but after that, the schedule looks a bit easier on paper.

Here, we look at THREE XI dilemmas the new boss has in his Villa Park debut…

James Chester was a massive loss to Aston Villa last time out. The defensive marshal had to sit and watch from the stands as he was suspended for the trip to Millwall before the international break.

It may be a dilemma for Smith, but realistically it should be an easy decision for him to give Chester a return to the starting eleven, as his importance was missed massively in the last fixture.

Steve Bruce used a number of strikers this season at Villa, with no one really scoring that many goals.

Tammy Abraham started the final few games of Bruce’s stint, and he will be hoping Dean Smith recognises his talent and also makes him his number one striker.

Abraham knows assistant manager John Terry well, and perhaps Villa fans will start to see the best of him from here on in.

In Bruce’s final weeks at the club, he struggled to settle on a first choice goalkeeper, with Orjan Nyland dropped for Mark Bunn in the 3-3 draw with Preston.

One massive dilemma for Smith is who he trusts in goal, with both staking a claim for the number one spot.

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