Mellberg: Pressure is telling

Olof Mellberg admits Villa are struggling to play under pressure as the strain of trying to match Liverpool and Everton stride for stride begins to tell.

Martin O’Neill’s side produced a woeful performance in last night’s 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough in a game the manager said was a ‘must-win’ if they were to keep the pressure on the Merseyside rivals.

Villa are now seven points adrift of the fourth and fifth placed Liverpool clubs with nine games left with only fifth spot open to UEFA Cup football.

“There’s been a few games now where there’s been pressure to win and we need to go at teams and they maybe sit back a little bit,” said Mellberg.

“We’ve struggled in those games, but we seem to play well away from home.

“The Fulham game was the last time we haven’t played well and that was a similar situation. We were under pressure – favourites to win and it didn’t work out. Last night from the first minute, nothing went well.”

Villa’s dejected players took a long time to emerge last night and Mellberg revealed O’Neill read the riot act after the game.

“The manager said everything (after the game),” he said. “He wasn’t happy and everyone could see this wasn’t a good performance.

“We couldn’t get going and I don’t know why. We’ll probably have a look and a chat today and see how we can improve.

“Middlesbrough played at the weekend but they came out strongly. Maybe they were a little bit tired at the end and we put them under pressure.

“It was very disappointing and frustrating.”

For Mellberg, it was the first time he’d come on as a substitute in seven years at Villa, but he admitted it was grim viewing.

“I’m not used to watching it from the bench but it definitely didn’t look good in the first half,” he said.

“There was a little improvement in the second, but we didn’t really create enough chances to score more goals.

“I can’t see Boro wanted it more than us but they definitely looked by far the better side in the first half. They won everything.”