Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard was left disappointed by our defeat to West Ham but immediately switched the focus to bouncing back against Arsenal.
Second-half goals from Andriy Yarmolenko and Pablo Fornals put the Hammers in a commanding position after a hard-fought and balanced first half between the two sides, while Jacob Ramsey’s late stunner wasn’t enough for Villa to get something from the encounter.
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The result ends a run of three consecutive clean sheets and wins for Villa, and so the focus now is on Arsenal and getting back on track as we try to end the season well.
As per the tweet below, speaking after the game, Gerrard noted that he felt there wasn’t much between the two sides and ultimately Villa lost the game in key moments where our defending perhaps could have been better.
While there was obvious disappointment for the Villa boss which will be shared by the players, the focus will quickly switch to the next game in training this week, correcting the mistakes and getting back to the level of performance that saw us win three in a row and start to look like a highly competitive team.
“We lost the game on two moments. There wasn’t much in the game, in terms of the levels of the two teams,” Gerrard said. “I’ve got no complaints in terms of what the players have given me: attitude, effort and commitment. It’s our third game in a week and we’ve worked ever so hard.
“We’ve lost the game on two moments, and defensively, we need to look at that and improve.”
“A lot of moments went against us today. It wasn’t our day and we’ve got a couple of injuries on the back of it.
“We go away disappointed with the result. As I said after the game against Leeds when we were feeling great, let’s stay calm, reset and get ready for Arsenal next week.
“We’ve got ten games to go and a lot to play for, in terms of where we finish.
“I felt we were capable of taking something out of the game. Even looking back now without watching it back, I still think we should have taken a point from the game.
“If we’d have defended a few moments better, we would have, and it would have been a positive result.
“It’s fine margins that have gone against us today. We have to accept that, learn and grow from it. We need to also remember what we’ve done over the last three games which has been outstanding.”
"It wasn't our day, so we have to take it on the chin, we have to react from it and have a real strong week going in to Arsenal."
Steven Gerrard assesses #WHUAVL. 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/FMjelhtSay
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) March 13, 2022
