Aston Villa defender Ezri Konsa conceded that we weren’t good enough in our disappointing 2-0 defeat to Wolves.
Villa once again fell behind early as we conceded from the first shot we faced, and our performance in the first half was well below-par.
READ MORE: What Unai Emery said in assessment of Villa’s defeat to Wolves
Our defensive deficiencies, albeit heightened by the fact that we’re missing key players, were exposed again, while we struggled to play with any rhythm or quality to create openings and cause Wolves problems.
While we did improve after the interval, the damage had ultimately been done as we couldn’t find a way back into the contest, having continued to lack quality and a cutting edge in the final third.
Konsa rightly highlighted our inability to keep a clean sheet as being a major problem, and while getting the likes of Tyrone Mings and Pau Torres back from injury and bringing in reinforcements will certainly help, we have to find a way to stop conceding such poor goals that put us at a disadvantage on such a regular basis.
“We just weren’t good enough today,” he said, as quoted by BBC Sport. “Simple as that. Second half we performed better but we didn’t have enough. We can make excuses about being fatigued but if we want to play Champions League we have to be prepared to play this much.
“This season, away from home, we have conceded early quite a lot and it is something we have to work on. Second half was better but it wasn’t enough. We put pressure on but I don’t think we troubled their back four or goalkeeper enough. We have to improve and we have to do it now.”
On Donyell Malen’s goal being ruled out:Â “I thought it was a normal goal. It is gone now and nothing we can do.”
On building for the future:Â “I think we have to stop conceding goals. I feel like we are conceding every game and me, being in the back line, I have to go back and look on it and change it.”
Villa now have a chance to rest and recover before facing Tottenham in the FA Cup next weekend, while there is respite in between the following two Premier League which will hopefully be a huge help to Emery and the players.
That should give us additional time to recover injured players, integrate new signings and ultimately rest and recover more efficiently as we weren’t at it on Saturday evening at Molineux and are capable of much more, as we saw earlier in the week against Celtic and the start we made to that game.
If we lack the necessary intensity and tempo in games over the course of the 90 minutes, bad things usually follow, and we found that lesson out again this weekend.
