Steven Gerrard hailed Aston Villa’s performance for the first hour of their encounter against Chelsea and was left to rue a lack of reward for their impressive play.
Villa were thwarted time and again during the first half as Blues goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga pulled off a string of brilliant saves to deny Danny Ings, Jacob Ramsey, John McGinn and Douglas Luiz, while Leon Bailey headed against the crossbar – one of three occasions Villa struck the woodwork.
But it was the visitors who left Villa Park with all three points thanks to Mason Mount’s brace, the first coming early on after just six minutes before the attacking midfielder converted a 65th-minute free-kick to double the deficit and inflict a tough defeat on the Villans.
And head coach Gerrard felt his side didn’t get what they deserved from the Premier League clash.
“No we never, and that can happen in football,” he told VillaTV.
“I’ve been around the game a long time to understand you’ve got to take your chances, you’ve got to reward yourself for all that good, exciting play.
“We wanted to entertain the fans and I think for an hour we were outstanding, we certainly didn’t deserve to be 2-0 down around that time.
“Our level of play, the intensity in and out of possession was all there, the quality to create the chances was there.
“I can’t ask the players for any more, I’ve just said to them ‘for the first hour, I’m really proud of you’.
"If they can replicate that performance on Thursday night and next weekend, we’ll take maximum points.
“We’ve just taken a real high-quality team to the trenches there, we just couldn’t reward ourselves for all the good play.”
Gerrard was quick to defend Tyrone Mings after his defensive error led to Mount’s opener, praising both his and the team’s strong response to the early setback.
But he acknowledged Villa could not make their dominance and positive play count as they were punished and left without any reward to show for their efforts.
“The front three were a big threat throughout, we asked them to really take the game and make it personal with Chelsea’s back three,” Gerrard added.
“Asking John and JJ to get in the box more and release themselves more to get more bodies forward.
“As I say, for the first 60 minutes, outside of Tyrone’s mistake, it’s probably the strongest 60 minutes the players have give.
“But we can’t keep saying we’ll take positives from the game, we want to take points and we want to take wins.”
