Youngster must learn: Villa boss

The £10m-rated on-loan Albion defender allowed Simon Davies to get across him for the first goal before his reckless foul on former Baggies team-mate Diomansy Kamara allowed Jimmy Bullard to score the free-kick winner.

Villa boss O'Neill said: "Do I blame Davies? You have to learn the game.

"He has to learn. The ability to learn quickly is the thing that distinguishes top quality players from mediocre players – if you've got the ability.

"And of course he has the ability. He's done well enough, although not particularly, perhaps, in the two games when Fabio Capello has come to watch, but he has to learn and he has to learn quickly.

"Curtis got a massive boost by being named in Capello's first 30 England players, but being chosen for that and playing big-time Premier League football on a regular basis is something else.

"I was delighted he got the call-up, but Curtis would be the first to say he's got plenty to do.

"And that goes for the team as well.

"But getting a call-up to an England 30 is totally different to becoming an established England international.

"Obviously one follows the other. The squad announcement was great and it lasted for a day and it was a big boost for the players, but I wouldn't want to hold phenomenal store with that."

O'Neill admitted Villa never did enough to win the game.

"We'd gone eight games unbeaten, but didn't play well enough," he said. "We have to accept that.

"Neither us nor Fulham played particularly well – the first half was a non-event.

"We wanted to win, but we never got going in the first half and even when we took the lead it is debatable whether any side had done enough to get in front.

"We didn't defend well enough a minute or two later, so it was disappointing because somewhat remarkably we were playing for fourth place.

"But you wouldn't have seen that in our performance.

"I accept as the home team the onus was on Fulham to come and play, but that's not been our style.

"Overall I've been delighted with the players, but we had an opportunity and we didn't do well enough.

"Fulham are a very neat and tidy footballing side but obviously lacking in confidence because they haven't won too many.

"It was a big opportunity for us playing against a footballing side, but we didn't do well enough."

O'Neill also revealed that missing the suspended Ashley Young was like Manchester United without Wayne Rooney.

"We missed Ashley. We miss our quality players more than United are going to miss Wayne Rooney," he said.

"He's the equivalent of that type of player for us."