Aston Villa boss Unai Emery conceded that our mistake was decisive in suffering a 1-0 defeat to Club Brugge.
Tyrone Mings was ultimately guilty of making a costly error, as he picked up Emiliano Martinez’s goal kick, believing that he was resetting play and taking it himself.
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The referee thought otherwise and awarded the home side a penalty for handball, and they duly dispatched it and went on to secure all three points.
In truth though, Villa were poor again as our disappointing run of form continues with a third consecutive defeat across all competitions, and although Emery pointed to positives and a decisive moment in the game, it’s hard to entirely agree on this occasion.
“We played a very good first half and created chances to score but we didn’t score,” he said, as per VillaTV. “We conceded a couple of chances but we were more or less controlling the match and we knew our way.
“In the second half, the mistake changed everything because one team like them, playing at home, they’re defensively strong, very focused and playing 100% in their idea to stop us and play in transition. They were better than us.
“The key was the first half and then the mistake we made. We learned last year that to play away in Europe is always difficult.
“It is very strange this mistake, but it is football. It’s the biggest mistake [his team has made] in my career as coach. We can make a mistake in the build up, but we work to try and control the games through possession. We did the first half fantastic.
“We lost one or two balls, but this mistake is very, very strange. It’s not for Tyrone Mings or Emi Martinez. It’s only happened one time in all my life. Today. We have to forget quickly. This mistake is not going to repeat again, I think never in my life.”
While the Villa boss is right in that we did play with more control in the first half and had chances, so did Brugge as they were arguably unfortunate not to go into the half-time interval ahead.
Again, he’s correct in his assessment that the mistake ultimately changed the game as we couldn’t recover and even threaten to get back on level terms, but that raises question marks about our own approach and execution of the gameplan.
Once more, Villa put in a performance that lacked energy, quality, intensity and aggression, and so all those things were fundamental factors in why we lost this game too.
It’s another lesson to learn from and we will hopefully be better off for it further down the road, but with a trip to Anfield to face Liverpool in the Premier League this weekend, this could be a bitterly disappointing and frustrating fortnight that has a negative impact across all fronts as we look to recover as quickly as possible.