Aston Villa 1-0 Swansea City: Tammy Abraham nets as Dean Smith makes winning start
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Swansea City goalkeeper Kristoffer Nordfeldt could do nothing about Tammy Abraham's towering header creeping into his bottom right corner
New boss Dean Smith was pleased for Aston Villa's home fans after beating Swansea City in his first game in charge in front of a full-to-capacity 41,326 Villa Park crowd.
"It was great to win it for the fans," said the lifelong Villa supporter. "It was one of the biggest crowds of the day, including the Premier League.
"It just shows what can happen at this club if we have a plan to move forward."
On a day when Villa officially marked last week's death of former chairman Sir Doug Ellis, on-loan Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham made it a happy start to Smith's new era by getting the only goal of the game.
From Ahmed Elmohamady's eighth-minute right-wing cross, Abraham rose highest to head home from close range against the club where he spent last season on loan.
It was a fourth goal in seven games for Abraham - and he might have had more.
Swansea keeper Kristoffer Nordfeldt - who had also done well to save Albert Adomah's deflected shot on 28 minutes - denied Abraham a second on 62 minutes, shortly after the striker had headed over from three yards.
"Tammy put in a hell of shift up front on his own and proved that he is a fine player. He is a handful," added Smith. "But he knows better than me that he should have been walking away with the match ball."
While Villa picked up their first win in five games to move within three points of the play-offs, Swansea had chances after the break to avoid a third game without a win.
Bersant Celina shot just wide and Jay Fulton's header was well saved by Villa keeper Orjan Nyland.
All of Tammy Abraham's 32 league goals have been scored from inside the 18-yard box
But, boosted by the return of their captain, Wales defender James Chester, who was banned for the 2-1 loss at Millwall (Villa's first game after Steve Bruce's sacking), the hosts crucially kept a clean sheet for only the second time this season.
"The clean sheet is a big thing for us, having conceded a lot of goals this season," said Smith. "My goalkeeper made some very good saves. He can take a lot from this game."
Victory meant new head coach Smith succeeded where Alex McLeish, Paul Lambert, Tim Sherwood, Remi Garde, Roberto Di Matteo and Bruce all failed and became the first Villa boss to win his opening league match since Gerard Houllier against Wolves in September 2010.
In their first game since the death of Ellis, aged 94, eight days previous, Villa paid a heartfelt pre-match tribute to their former chairman.
Swansea manager Graham Potter:
"With the emotion of Sir Doug passing it was always going to be a challenging environment.
"We are playing some good football but we need to turn that into goals and wins. It's one of those first halves we'll look back on and probably learn a lot from.
"Aston Villa are a big club. There's no disgrace in losing here but we want to improve our performance and do better."
New Villa head coach Dean Smith and assistant John Terry were among the 41,326 who paid tribute to the late Sir Doug Ellis at a sold-out Villa Park