Steven Gerrard blasts Aston Villa’s defending following 2-1 defeat to Brentford

Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard has blasted his side’s defensive frailties following the 2-1 loss to Brentford on Sunday afternoon.

The claret & blue looked at ease for large periods of the game and after taking the lead through Danny Ings’ fourth goal of the season in the 16th minute - looked to be heading for one of their more comfortable three points of the campaign.

But after the hosts had equalised with just their first shot on target, it almost had an inevitability around it that it was going to be one of those days - and that it was.

Again, despite facing next to no pressure throughout the second-half, up popped Mads Roerslev with just minutes to go to slot past Emi Martinez at the second attempt following some shoddy Villa defending.

Gerrard’s men weren’t great on the day, there’s no denying that but at no point did they actually look in any danger throughout the 90 minutes and yet they’ve come away with nothing.

And it’s that that has frustrated the manager the most. The manner of the goals conceded were not acceptable and will not be tolerated by the scouser, who was visibly annoyed in his post match presser.

“We haven’t defended one situation well enough,” Gerrard said

“When I first came into this job we had some real positive strong results early on because there was a lot of grit, a lot of aggression and a lot of people that wanted to put their bodies on the line.

“I didn’t see any of that in the second goal we’ve conceded.

“Inevitably we’ll go away disappointed and frustrated but we’ve got ourselves to blame because at this level if you lose those key ingredients in terms of defensive work, teams will score.

“They’ve had three good attacks today from their point of view and they’ve scored two goals - that’s not good enough from our point of view.”

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