'Not our day' - Key man issues Aston Villa plea after Fulham defeat

Youri Tielemans has urged Villa to put Saturday’s defeat at Fulham quickly behind them as attention turns to Thursday’s Europa League showdown with Nottingham Forest.

Villa head to the City Ground for the semi-final first leg after seeing a six-match unbeaten run ended at Craven Cottage.

Ryan Sessegnon’s first half goal was enough to earn the home side victory, as Villa missed the chance to take another step toward securing a top-five Premier League finish.

Midfielder Tielemans says they must quickly move on with plenty still to play for over the season’s final month.

“We know Saturday wasn’t our day maybe, but we’ve got a few games left and we need to make the most of it,” he said.

“We need to try and win those games to keep where we are, so that’s the aim for this last part of the season.”

Tielemans admitted Villa had been a long way from their best as they slid to defeat in west London.

Ollie Watkins, Tammy Abraham and Morgan Rogers all missed good chances to score as the visitors failed to force a serious save out of home keeper Bernd Leno.

And though boss Unai Emery chose to focus on his team’s lack of killer instinct, Tielemans conceded their overall performance had not been good enough.

He said: “Obviously we lost the game, (and) I didn’t think we had much in us to win it. That’s more frustrating.

“We maybe weren’t in the game today, it happens sometimes. We tried to keep pushing and create something, but it just wouldn’t happen today.

“They (Fulham) were at it from the first moment. They were good in their pressing, they kept the ball well, they created some chances.

“It was very hard to get to them, then they have individual qualities as well.”

Villa head to Forest on a run of nine straight Europa League wins. But their record away from home in the Premier League is cause for concern, with Saturday extending their winless run on the road in domestic competition to five matches.

The run includes a 1-1 draw at Forest earlier this month.

Emery said: "We lost a really good opportunity, the players did everything we were planning but we needed to be more clinical.

“We had chances with Ollie Watkins, Tammy Abraham but we couldn't get in their box.

“We needed to better occupy the spaces in their box. We did everything we were planning but sometimes we are scoring sometimes not like today. It was a tight match and they score one goal and we lost.

"It's going to be very difficult. My message is the same - keep going, keep trying to get better each week."