Aston Villa forward Ollie Watkins has revealed how he feels as though he ‘let us down’ in our 3-1 defeat to Man City, and offered insight into Unai Emery’s half-time team-talk.
After a bitterly disappointing first-half performance, Villa were 3-0 down at the break at the Etihad, and had it all to do in the second half to try and turn things around.
READ MORE: What Unai Emery said after Villa’s 3-1 defeat to Man City
Despite a spirited effort and another goal for Watkins, the damage had already been done in the opening 45 minutes, as we once again contributed to our own downfall with yet more mistakes, and were generally poor across the board in both phases of the game.
Although Watkins has now scored in three straight league outings and has four goals and two assists in eight Premier League games under Unai Emery, he was evidently disappointed with the result as he highlighted his own mistake for the first goal and feels as though he let his teammates down.
“It was not good enough from us collectively as a team,” he said, as per BBC Sport. “Don’t get me wrong, they are world-class players but we were too soft, me especially when Rodri ran past me for that goal. I should have made the second block and I feel I let us down today.
“Against City you cannot give away easy goals. The first was from a set-piece and then it is hard to get back into the game.”
While it’s understandable as to where he’s coming from given the importance of the first goal and how early it came against us, Watkins put in another important shift for the team as he worked tirelessly up front, and also added real quality with his finish to get on the scoresheet.
It’s collectively where Villa need to improve though, particularly from a defensive perspective as we’ve now conceded seven goals in our last two games, and of course, cutting out the individual mistakes would certainly help.
Speaking on Emery’s words at half-time, Watkins offered insight into the accountability that the Spaniard is trying to preach to his players, and the focus now will be on continuing to learn from our errors and not only avoiding repeating them, but improving in every way possible to continue to make progress this season.
“He told us that if you make a mistake, own it and don’t look at anyone else,” Watkins added. “We have to learn from this.”
