Steven Gerrard says Villa’s defensive play at set-pieces and a real lack of quality in the final third were the two main reasons behind his side’s woeful opening day defeat against Bournemouth. Villa were a goal down inside 180 seconds as Jefferson Lerma, slotting in at centre-back, lashed home after capitalising on some suspect defending from a Marcus Tavernier corner. Then, nine minutes from time, Cherries’ skipper Lloyd Kelly looped a hopeful ball into Villa’s box and up popped Kieffer Moore who planted his header beyond Emi Martinez for 2-0.
Steven Gerrard said: “It was extremely disappointing and it was certainly not the result we came here for. I don’t think we can have any complaints about the outcome of the game for a couple of reasons. A lot of focus will be on our set-plays. We conceded the two goals in that area today so I understand a lot of focus in that area but I also understand that in the 90 minutes we had a lot of control, a lot of possession in decent areas of the pitch today and we had a lack of quality. The focus should be on that as well. We conceded really early on. We spoke and we’ve worked on set-plays all week and we spoke about the profile in the opposition team. We said it was important not to give silly set-plays away. We concede a set-play very early on and it allows them to sit in. It allows them to be a low block and allows them to frustrate. I thought Bournemouth defended extremely well but we allowed them to be in that low block by conceding that early goal. We had enough possession and control in that game. We’ve got enough good areas and we’ve got enough quality areas on the pitch but our last pass, our last cross and inventive spark was off today, for sure. Our quality was off. We never had enough shots on goal. We never crossed well enough. We couldn’t find the answers in the final third and that’s on me, that’s on us.”
Steven Gerrard insists that a lack of quality in the final third was Aston Villa’s undoing at Bournemouth, as his side fell to a 2-0 defeat against the newly-promoted club. Goals either side of half time from Jefferson Lerma and Kieffer Moore handed the Cherries three points on the opening weekend of the new Premier League campaign. Villa created very little in the way of goal scoring opportunities at the Vitality Stadium this afternoon and were punished for a poor performance by Scott Parker’s men.
Steven Gerrard said: “I think there will be a lot of focus on set plays, so that’s obvious, but from our point of view we lacked quality in the final third. We have controlled large parts of the game, we’ve had a lot of possession, we’ve got into a lot of good areas but our quality was off today. Our last pass, our last cross, that bit of inventive spark and we never nowhere near created enough today. There’s two ways to look at this, I’m not going to be disrespectful, they defended really well, we gave them an early lead and the challenge became more difficult for us because it allowed them to stay in a block and it allowed them to be really deep. Then then the emphasis was on us to get in the right areas and have enough quality to break them down and get back into the game, we couldn’t do that today. I thought Bouba was really good, arguably our most strongest performer, I’m really happy with his performance. Defensively we done okay, Diego helped us in general to be solid defensively but we had big issues from set plays and that’s another area where we need to improve.”
Steven Gerrard has promised Tyrone Mings that he will be given an opportunity to win back his place in the starting XI by returning to his “consistent best” after the centre-back was named amongst the substitutes in Aston Villa’s 2-0 defeat to Bournemouth. Asked about Mings’ omission and if he was missed in the defeat,
Steven Gerrard said: “I think people might talk about that, I think the easy thing to do after defeat is to look at the people not on the pitch. We had enough quality on the pitch today to win this game. I’m confident and have full belief that when Tyrone is back at his best and looks me in the eye and shows me he’s ready to play, he’ll get opportunities. He’s missed some training time with an injury and there’s a niggle in the background as well. That’s the challenge I set him when I made the decision over the captaincy, we set him that challenge. We said to Tyrone, get back to your consistent best and you’ll be back in the team.
Steven Gerrard added: “We haven’t lost the game today because Tyrone Mings wasn’t playing, for sure, but we want Tyrone to get back to his best physically, he needs to get rid.of the niggle and show on the training pitch that he’s back to his best and I’m sure there will be an opportunity for him.”
Villa will host Everton next week in search of winning their first match of the season after making a slow start on the south coast.
