Steven Gerrard: Lack of quality cost Aston Villa
Boss Steven Gerrard highlighted a lack of quality in the final third and inability to defend set pieces as the catalysts for opening day disappointment as Villa fell to defeat at newly-promoted Bournemouth.
The Head Coach saw his team struggle to break down a resolute Bournemouth side who were more clinical in both boxes and sealed the points thanks to Jefferson Lerma and Kieffer Moore top and tailing the scoring on two and 80 minutes respectively.
Both goals came from set pieces, much to Gerrard’s disappointment, but he was equally frustrated by Villa not taking advantage of their superior possession and making more of their attacking spells as they tried to get back into the game.
“It was extremely disappointing and certainly not the result we came here for,” said the boss.
“But I don’t think we can have any complaints with the outcome of the game.
“A lot of focus will be on our set plays and I understand that because we have conceded two goals in that area but we have also had 90 minutes with a lot of possession, a lot of control and got ourselves into a lot of decent areas on the pitch.
“We just had a lack of quality so the focus should be on that as well.”
Gerrard revealed that Villa were well aware of Bournemouth’s threats from set pieces but were unable to keep them at bay.
“We had worked on set plays all week and spoke about the profile of the opposition and said it was very important not to give silly set plays away,” he explained.
“We conceded a set play very early on which allowed to them to sit in and be on a low block and I thought Bournemouth defended really well but we allowed them to do that by conceding so early.
“We had enough control in the game after that, got to enough quality areas and had enough creative players on the pitch but our last pass, our last cross, our last inventive spark just wasn’t there.
“We didn’t have enough shots on goal, didn’t cross the ball well enough and didn’t show enough invention.
“There was enough attacking quality on the pitch and some people had more game time than others but we couldn’t find the answers in the final third.
“That’s on me – and that’s on us.”
Gerrard revealed that the half time substitution which saw Jacob Ramsey make way for Emiliano Buendia came as a result of the yellow card which put Ramsey potentially one foul away from seeing red.
“I do think we had more of a foothold in the second half and felt it was improving slightly but we conceded a sucker punch goal and by that point the game was over,” he added.
