Unai Emery admits out-of-form Aston Villa need to cut out mistakes
Villa are without a win from their last six matches in all competitions.
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Your support makes all the difference.Aston Villa boss Unai Emery admits his side are “making mistakes” following the 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace at Villa Park.
The result left Villa without a win from their last six matches in all competitions as they head into another tough Champions League fixture against Juventus in midweek.
Ismaila Sarr put the visitors in front when he expertly finished past Emiliano Martinez before Ollie Watkins rounded Dean Henderson to level things up.
Youri Tielemans saw his spot-kick saved by Henderson before Justin Devenny went down the other end to put Palace in position for a first away league win of the season with his first professional goal 57 seconds later, but Ross Barkley’s equaliser ensured Villa a share of the spoils.
Villa stopped the rot of four straight defeats in all competitions with a draw but it has been over a month since they last tasted victory.
Emery said: “We were thinking how strong we were when we were winning 15 matches in a row. And how we can again recover this confidence, this energy, this capacity to be here.
“We dominated the match. We conceded a few chances for the opponents and they are scoring goals, we are making mistakes and they are scoring and we are not getting the points we deserve but still work to do.
“We played here at home this year in the Premier League not getting three points but we deserved them in each match to win.
“Today we drew but played well. But we are making mistakes and getting punished a lot and this is work to do. We are more or less being demanding to try and keep going with the same consistency we had last year.”
Villa conceded twice on the counter-attack against Liverpool last time out and they were again punished following their own corner as Devenny put Palace 2-1 in front.
Emery admits his side worked on that in training but still fell victim to conceding a goal in that fashion.
He added: “We were deeply analysing the transition against Liverpool, today was different but even like that they did it.
“Against Liverpool we had two around the box and today we had three around the box. But of course the correction is how many players we can have in the balance and how we react and respond when they are running at us.
“Defensively we didn’t fix the players like we prepared and the transition of the second goal from our corner.”
Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner hailed 21-year-old Devenny, who bagged his first goal on just his second start for the club.
Glasner said: “He came from our academy and was with us in pre-season and he showed here he’s an unbelievable footballer.
“He’s very technical but he can also run a lot and he can play four positions in our system.
“If you’re a quality player who works so hard then you get your reward. But he’s still at the beginning so we keep him back so he can develop in the right way.”