The five words Emi Martinez used to sum up Aston Villa’s defeat against Leicester City

Aston Villa were the architects of their own downfall on Saturday afternoon (4 February) as they were beaten 4-2 by relegation battlers Leicester City at Villa Park, despite taking an early lead.

An opportunity to soar into the top half of the Premier League goes begging for Unai Emery’s men, who were impressive on the attack but incredibly shaky at the back once again in a thrilling end-to-end clash. The Lions were never going to get away with their extreme sloppiness, and Leicester did well to take advantage.

Villa twice took the lead courtesy of Ollie Watkins and Harry Souttar’s own goal, only for the Foxes to hit back through James Maddison and Kelechi Iheanacho before Tete put the visitors ahead in first-half injury time.

‘We gave them the lead’

Following the game, speaking to VillaTV post-match, goalkeeper Martínez said his side made too many big mistakes.

Argentina’s number one, said: “We started really well, obviously we like to play a 3pm kick-off at Villa Park, I think we’ve done well so far this season. It was just a couple of mistakes, three mistakes for them to score, we gave them the lead.

“After that it was quite hard to come back.”

He added: “Obviously there were errors, big errors.

“But that’s what a team is about. We started the second half trying to get those mistakes away, we couldn’t, they took the lead again through another mistake.

“But I’m okay with mistakes, I’ve made a few mistakes here as well. I couldn’t save any of the shots, I think they had four shots and scored four goals.

“It was a frustrating day for me as well.”