Aston Villa boss Dean Smith has revealed to the Birmingham Mail that he let his players know that they had ‘thrown away’ three points against Burnley last night.
Villa thoroughly dominated the first half at Turf Moor and could have been out of sight by the break had they been more clinical.
Instead, Smith’s side only went in 1-0 up at half-time and Burnley put in a much improved performance in the second half.
Sean Dyche’s side pegged back Villa early on after the break, but then Jack Grealish did manage to put the claret and blues in front.
That only went on to inspire Burnley though, and goals from Dwight McNeil and Chris Wood turned the tide in their favour.
Villa were left wondering how they hadn’t got anything from the game at full-time.
But Smith felt that his side let themselves down, as their defending was so poor.
“The word I’ve used is disbelief. At half-time we should have been out of sight with the chances we created,” he said.
“We didn’t actually start the game well in the first 10 minutes. We had a number of chances there and we should have been three goals up at half-time and it would have been game over.
“I’ve just said to the players it’s a difficult league to win in and we have just thrown away three points there today with some really poor defending and general basic errors really.”
It is not the first time this season that Villa have failed to make their ample chances pay.
Indeed, even in the home game against Burnley, Villa were wasteful in front of goal.
It seems that Smith’s side did not learn their lessons from that outing though, and last night’s defeat has caused a major disappointment.
Villa are now in 10th place in the Premier League table, although they do have games in hand over many of the sides around them.
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