Aston Villa boss Unai Emery remained upbeat despite seeing his side suffer a 2-0 defeat against Liverpool in the Premier League on Saturday night.
Goals from Mohamed Salah and Ryan Gravenberch secured all three points for the home side at Anfield, with Villa left to rue missed opportunities in the opening stages of the game as well as a really poor mistake from Emiliano Martinez just prior to half-time to gift them the lead.
The defeat ends our four-game winning streak in the league, as we now look ahead to facing Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League on Thursday night in our bid to bounce back immediately.
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As always, Emery remained balanced in his assessment of the game, as he wasn’t critical of his players but was disappointed with the outcome. That said, Liverpool deserve credit too having overcome their own recent struggles to kick on after the opening goal and dominate, and it certainly made the task even more difficult than it already was.
“They needed to react and they reacted,” he said, as quoted by BBC Sport. “In the first 30 minutes, we had chances to score. In the last 15 minutes we conceded one goal with the mistake we made. We competed and we were close to score one goal but we didn’t get it. Today we lost and we have to accept it.
Conceding the first goal: “I must watch this action because this is our style. Maybe we need to play, trying to take time. Obviously it is more dangerous in our box to play with the personality we do.”
On focusing on the next game: “We are focusing on each competition differently and in the Premier League we want to react like we did. The next steps in next Sunday against Bournemouth, it will be a fantastic game at home in front of our supporters. We will try to build the team and get some players fit and feeling confident as soon as possible.”
On Tyrone Mings: “He felt his hamstring I think. Hopefully it is not too bad for the next matches.”
He later added when speaking to Match of the Day: “We competed and we dominated sometimes. We were feeling good and we created some chances, hit the post and we were more or less getting confident but here in Anfield it is hard to dominate like we did in the last 30 minutes.
“We conceded one goal which was a clear offside and the goal we conceded making the mistake, we have to be so demanding in how we are trying to stop the opponent. We are trying to get better. We lost and in the first half the goal was very important for them. We had some chances to get in their box but we didn’t score. We have to accept this defeat and try to keep going while looking forward to the next matches.
“We need to keep working and keep being positive after we started the season so poorly. Now the next challenge is next Sunday against Bournemouth. We have to get our structure. Some need time to recover their form and be more clinical in everything they are doing. The goals will come working like we are working.”
It’s hard to disagree with his initial analysis, as ultimately Villa did start relatively well and needed to be clinical when those openings came. Having failed to take advantage, albeit Rogers went close with an excellent effort from distance, we needed to stay switched on and resilient at the back, but the mistake just before the half-time interval was critical and just can’t happen.
Question marks will be raised over the second-half performance as it was flat and blunt up top, and so although we’ve recovered well and have started to show more quality in the final third, we must be better than what we saw on Saturday night moving forward if we are to show consistency and continue to move in the right direction and climb the standings.