Aston Villa's start to the season was pretty poor and due to their run of terrible results, the Villa board sacked Steve Bruce and brought in Brentford's talented manager, Dean Smith. 

After beating Bolton 2-0, Smith guided the club to its best win of the season as they beat Derby County 3-0 in what was one of the surprise results of the weekend.

Considering the amount of quality Bruce had in the squad, to not be in the top half was terrible.

In Smith, Villa now have one of the best managerial minds in the country and he's seemingly already had a huge effect on the side as they've now won three of their last five under the former Brentford man.

Key to that resurgence has been the form of on-loan striker, Tammy Abraham who scored his fifth goal for the club at the weekend and has claimed that they should be aiming for automatic promotion this season.

The Breakdown

Villa are now just seven points behind second-place Middlesbrough and could well be a dark horse in the race for promotion.

With Abraham up front, Villa have a striker that has a proven track record in the Championship and scored 23 goals in 41 games for Bristol City two seasons ago.

With the likes of Yannick Bolasie, Anwar El Ghazi, Jack Grealish too, Villa could thrive under Smith's attacking-based style of football.

Villa may still be 11th in the table but with the number of quality players in the side, there's no doubt that they could still achieve automatic promotion.

Thoughts Villa fans?