Martin O’Neill has questioned the desire of Villa’s players after their European hopes took a nosedive against Middlesbrough.
Villa produced one of their worst performances of the season in the 1-1 draw and were fortunate to get a point after Gareth Barry scored a harshly awarded penalty.
But the draw kept their UEFA Cup hopes alive and they are seven points behind Liverpool and Everton with nine games left.
“A disappointing aspect was we didn’t show phenomenal desire,” said boss O’Neill. “That’s not something I’ve levelled at the players too often.
“We were second for far too long and that was particularly disappointing. Now it’s my job to do something about it.
“The players have responded before and now they have to do it again.”
Barry admitted manager and players were ‘hurting’ as he revealed the dressing room was as low as he’d known it during O’Neill’s tenure.
“There were no good performances. The team performance is what we’re disappointed with,” he said.
“The gaffer’s hurting as much as the players because he takes the blame as much as us.
“That was the lowest the dressing room has been for a while. But we’re in it together and to take it personally is the right thing to do, and that’s what all the players do.”
And Barry backed O’Neill to lift the players for Saturday’s crunch trip to FA Cup semi-finalists Portsmouth.
“We’ll be down in the dumps but Portsmouth is around the corner so we can’t afford to be worry too much,” he said.
“That’s where his good man-management skills come in.”
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6 Comments
No Quality !No Leadership!
the performance last night was totally gutless, agbonlahor was particually dreadful, i think the good ship ‘fourth place’ has pulled away from the harbour, unless we take nine points from pompey, sunderland and man utd. and i think we all know thats not going to happen.
Easy guys! Look at the progress. Always remember if it was still O’Clueless we’d be fighting it out with Leicester and Coventry now. Trust in MON.
no-one is denying the huge steps we have taken in the last 2 years but it was terrible to see a team pushing for europe outplayed by a very poor ‘boro side.it would have been nice to edge a little closer to the merseyside two, but we have left ourselves alot of work to do, which is especially frustrating in the week we find out that there is no uefa cup place for sixth position.
Jesus u lot think ur hard done by! u wanna try supporting the Wolves!
We look like we have missed out on europe this year but to be fair i think the teams above us are a it further in there development..mon has been with us a short while and performances like this will expose the short comings of the team ..i dont think we currently have enough fire power to consistanly win games