Aston Villa defender Ezri Konsa admits seeing Dean Smith sacked was tough to take.

Smith is now in charge of Norwich City.

Konsa stated: "He signed me twice, at Brentford and Aston Villa. He gave me my Premier League debut and showed a lot of faith in me. I will be always be grateful for what he has done for my career. I hope he does really well at Norwich.

"Before every game he would tell me, 'concentration for 90 minutes.' That would just stick in my head. No matter how tired I am, even if it is the 90th minute, always stay focused because in the Premier League if you sleep for a second you get punished for it."

He also discussed the impact that new boss Steven Gerrard has had on the team: "I just really like how he has got really high standards.

"He has that presence. You always want to impress him every day that you come into training. He has already said to us from the first day that he came in that he wants everyone to train how they play. That is something that we have really enjoyed doing."