Still Not Good Enough, Says the Boss

Well, it comes straight from the horse's mouth. Gerrard today said: “To take nine points from 12 is a big return from the players. They deserve a load of credit. But there’s still work to do. Some of them still need to improve".

Yes, in both of the last two games, the Villa has been far too tentative in the first half. This allowed Man City to gain a sufficient lead to help them over the line at the end and today we again conceded the first goal, but thankfully there was an immediate response in terms of an equaliser. Not the display, however, as Villa lurched into half-time feeling as though they had a second goal stolen from them, but if it had stood the score would not have reflected the balance of the play in the first half.

That Villa failed to gain the lead made it more possible to lay into the players at the break (as they deserved), and they woke up to Gerrard's tirade.

Villa cannot afford to do this 'Sloppy Joe' first-half act at Anfield next week! If they do then Salah and Mané will have them for breakfast, and a 7-2 to Liverpool (revenge day?) would be on the cards.

Gerrard and the players, however, should now know all too clearly of that possibility, and the old Villa motto "Prepared!" must be etched into their brains for this upcoming encounter.

Pleasing to see today was the play of young Ramsey - pity he couldn't steady himself with that great chance presented by McGinn in the second half. Pleasing also to see the occasional quick-switching movement to get down the pitch in better fashion than they were before. But Leicester "was taking no prisoners", as they say.

And talking of McGinn, for me he is the main player that keeps the Villa moving, and with another game or two together, he and Beundia, in particular, could begin to make a much bigger impact as a duo. As for Douglas Luiz, I remain not 100% impressed and am waiting for Sanson to come up to speed.

Anyhow, The Ownership and The Manager/Coach have all been showing the kind of class that Villa have needed for nearly 100 years. Even in the Ron Saunders' years there were problems with the board, so the fact that Ron and Tony achieved what they did was all the more remarkable.

We could now be witnessing the start of a very powerful combination that will finally achieve what Doug Ellis and Lerner and Co. couldn't.

We just have the small matter of an Anfield appearance next week to see just how far away we are from really being on the 'up'.

Meanwhile, we're in the top-10!

UTV!