Unai Emery expresses disappointment and frustration at faltering Villa performance

The Basque believes his team took too long to come to life in their 1-0 loss to Brentford.

Clean sheets and driven displays are on the agenda for Aston Villa to make up the margins they missed in the race for the top five. But their attempts to achieve those targets began badly this afternoon against Brentford, leaving Unai Emery “frustrated” at a “very disappointing” outcom

‘We are in the process of building the team’
The Bees punished a slow start from their opponents. Mikkel Damsgaard danced through a double team before pulling a strike wide of the target as the warning shot. Then, Dango Ouattara, the club record incoming, marked his first start with a goal as he was the sharpest to connect with a flick-on.

“We are frustrated. We lost the match when in the first 20 minutes we were not starting like we needed to control the game, and we conceded one goal.”

Villa woke up, going on to possess 76% of the ball. Morgan Rogers, the newly crowned PFA Player of the Year, might have levelled the score in a stronger second half if Michael Kayode had not thrown him off focus. But the team have now fired two blanks in three hours of Premier League football.

“We reacted and we dominated. We were having corners, we had some chances to score one goal to draw and then to start our own match, thinking to win. We didn’t score and we tried everything. We need to work and keep going forward with this result being very, very disappointing for us.”