By Paul Brown

Stiliyan Petrov was gutted to see Europa League progress slip away - but insisted there's still plenty to play for this season.

Petrov pulled no punches in saying Villa "blew it" after going down 3-2 to Rapid on the night and 4-3 on aggregate in the play-off decider.

But the skipper said a downbeat atmosphere in the dressing room would get the players nowhere with most of the campaign still to look forward to.

He now hopes Villa can repeat their heroics from last term, following up the early Europa League elimination with a high Barclays Premier League finish and two impressive displays in the domestic knockout competitions.

He said: "It was a disappointment.

"We worked so hard to get European football and we blew it. It is our own fault.

"We needed to win to go through and we couldn't do that again.

"We were very confident at half-time. We looked confident, we controlled the game, we looked very good but obviously we did something wrong in the second half and they managed to score three goals.

"But there is still a lot to come. It is still the start of the season.

"We are out of Europe, it is a disappointing thing, but we can't get our heads down.

"We need to go and perform now every single week."

The influential skipper was adamant Villa had to put things right at both ends of the pitch - being more clinical in front of goal and cutting out defensive errors too.

He continued: "We missed a penalty, we came back again and scored a second goal, we looked comfortable and then we conceded again.

"Obviously we need to work on things and we are conceding goals easily at the moment and we just need to work on that because we as a team, last season, defended really well and that is what we need to improve on.

"We had enough chances to win the game too. It seems like that has been our problem but we just need to put things right.

"We need to be more clinical, we need to score more because games like that, if you score, you win. We couldn't and we lost."

Petrov missed a penalty late in the second half after stepping up to take on the weight of responsibility.

And he said, despite the disappointment, he'd be happy to do so again.

He added: "With penalties you either score or you miss. I missed. John missed the last one.

"That is the way it goes. I hope that will turn around in the next few games.

"I will [take another]. I don't run away from my responsibilities. That is the way football goes - one day you score, one day you don't."