Jack Grealish has revealed that he stayed at Villa Park this Summer because he dreams of playing for Villa again in the top flight.
The midfielder was touted with a big Summer move to Tottenham over the Summer Window, but no deal would materalise come the deadline.
Speaking ahead of the huge West Midlands derby between Villa and West Brom on Friday, Grealish revealed that his commitment to Villa is what kept him at the club during the speculation.
Grealish said, via Sky Sports:
The speculation was difficult to deal with because every young player wants to play at the top, especially when it’s a team in the Champions League.
But when it didn’t happen, it didn’t bother me at all, because my dream as a kid was to play for Aston Villa and I would never ever take that for granted, so I got my head down and now hopefully I can get this club back to where it belongs.
Grealish revealed that Villa are aiming for automatic promotion despite their difficult start to the season.
Villa sacked Steve Bruce after a dreadful start to the season, with new boss Dean Smith coming in from Brentford. Smith has managed to galvanise Villa, who are now back into promotion contention.
Automatic promotion is the target. You look at our team here and that’s what we should be striving for.
The players that we’ve got, even the guys that are coming off the bench and the people that are injured at the moment, we’ve got talent all around the squad.
The only thing the staff and players are looking at is automatic promotion.
Villa will be hoping to get the better of Albion, who sit above the Villans in the Championship table.
