Aston Villa crashed to a 4-3 defeat against Southampton in the Premier League last night and manager Dean Smith seems very disappointed with the performance of his players.
Aston Villa were down 3-0 at half time and although they tried to come back into the game in the second half it was too little too late in the end.
Dean Smith believes that the players are responsible for the defeat and most of the damage against Southampton was self-inflicted.
The Aston Villa manager claims that his players allowed Southampton to play through them in the midfield and the performance was inexcusable and frustrating.
“It was a damage that was a little bit self-inflicted because we give away free-kicks in stupid areas where they’ve got a specialist set-piece taker,” Smith said.
“I went in at half-time scratching my head. It didn’t feel like a 3-0 game at that point. It was a second-ball affair in midfield, it was scrappy and there were no real chances.
“The assistant referee has given them an opportunity to put a really good ball in. Then we’ve allowed them to play through us. The players thought something more tactical was involved but there wasn’t in my opinion.
Smith added: “We’re really disappointed because we know the qualities they have there and giving free-kicks away is inexcusable. I’m disappointed, frustrated.”
Aston Villa have now lost two games against Leeds and Southampton after their impressive start to the season and it remains to be seen whether their momentum is affected because of that.
There is no doubt that they have real quality in the site but Aston Villa will have to improve a lot in the coming weeks.
It will be interesting to see if Aston Villa can bounce back to winning ways with a strong performance in their next game now.