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Aston Villa manager backing his young guns

Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert today insisted his young players are good enough to help the club beat the drop after they stopped the rot against Swansea.

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With an average age of 23 years and 120 days, Villa fielded their youngest-ever team in a Premier League match in the 2-2 draw against Swansea at the Liberty Stadium.

It ended a run of three defeats in which the claret and blues had conceded 15 goals and Lambert has faith that his youthful side can avoid relegation.

He said: "Can we survive with young players? Yes, absolutely. They stepped up to the plate. We are not a million miles away from mid-table.

"I have got to turn it around because we have been beaten heavily recently. It's a huge point for the future of the club and the young lads have been excellent.

"When you are beaten heavily, you learn a lot from people and they showed me that mentally they are really strong.

"We have taken a lot of knocks and kickings, but I have a lot of faith in what we are doing and I won't deviate from it. You always look up in football, not at what is behind you.

"People go on about not having any experience but we do have experience in the team – it's just that the lads are injured at the minute.

"The club has had two years of being in a position where this isn't new to them. You earn the right to go up the league. The future of the club is really, really good.

"I just keep having the belief that we have always had."

Lambert claimed Villa got more of the breaks against Swansea having ridden their luck in the opening period of a game in which Michael Laudrup's side should have increased their lead.

The Villa boss said: "You've just got to weather the storm and hope you get a break somewhere along the line.

"We got the luck and a break we haven't had in the last three games. The lads have taken so much criticism in the last three weeks but they deserve a lot of praise."

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