Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has conceded his side are making mistakes and being punished after our 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Villa fell behind early after the visitors opened the scoring in the fourth minute, but Ollie Watkins drew us level just after the half hour mark with Youri Tielemans having the chance to put us ahead from the penalty spot just before the break.
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However, the Belgian international’s spot-kick was saved, and from the resulting corner, Villa fell behind again as we didn’t learn our lessons from our defeat to Liverpool prior to the international break.
Ross Barkley’s header ultimately salvaged a point for us, but there are lingering question marks over Villa as our poor form continues, while it was once again an unconvincing display despite battling back twice to secure a share of the spoils.
Emery remains positive in terms of how we’re playing and deserving of more, but he conceded that we are committing mistakes, and ultimately our rivals are punishing us through this difficult spell.
“Here at home, we were thinking how strong we were winning 15 games in a row and how we can recover confidence, impose our gameplan,” he told the media after the game, as per The Athletic’s Jacob Tanswell. “We are losing some opportunities. We are conceding a few chances for the opponent and making some mistakes.
“We were not getting three points but deserving here at home more or less to win. We played well against Arsenal, Bournemouth, Man United and here and we played well. But we are making mistakes and they are punishing us.”
It’s hard to disagree with the Villa boss, as although it could be argued that our performances haven’t been as good as he suggests, we’re suffering with a porous defence that isn’t keeping enough clean sheets and making it hard for the opposition to score, while we’re lacking a clinical and ruthless edge to our play in the final third.
That is not a recipe for winning football, and with issues in controlling the game in between the two ends of the pitch as we missed key players this weekend too, it has led to this slump in form and a disappointing run of results.
It was hoped that the international break would give us a chance to reset and find our rhythm again, but that wasn’t on display on Saturday against Palace, and so we must now hope that we’re able to raise our level when Juventus visit Villa Park in the Champions League next week.
As per VillaTV in the video below, Emery also praised Palace but reiterated that we’re missing chances and making mistakes that are ultimately costing us.
Unai’s thoughts after today’s draw against Crystal Palace 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/oDGxTKkg1l
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) November 23, 2024