Downbeat Steven Gerrard confessed his toiling Aston Villa side took a big step back after their comprehensive 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace.
The former Rangers boss watched on as Ollie Watkins' opener counted for little at Selhurst Park as his side were outclassed by Patrick Vieira's men for much of the encounter. Gerrard has been left ruing the loss of Diego Carlos due to a serious achilles injury, which could rule the Brazilian out for a large chunk of the season.
But the 42-year-old, with one win in his last seven Premier League games stretching back to last season, refused to use injury woe as an excuse after watching his team come unstuck in London. Speaking after the setback, he said: "The get-out is to say we don’t have enough in the building. But I have full belief in these players we can find this consistency. We had a huge setback this week in the heart of defence, which was well documented. In the coming days we will do everything we can to give the players more support. We want to move forward and are not satisfied with the inconsistency.
“The challenge for me and the players and this group is to find a better level of consistency. It is what I have said since I came in. We are not there yet. We will keep striving.”
Gerrard reckoned Villa were harshly treated with the spot kick which allowed Palace to make it 2-1 as Wilfried Zaha scored from the rebound after his initial strike was stopped. He added: “Some people will say it is a stonewall penalty. For me it is harsh. I am not sure what Lucas can do in that situation. He tries to compete honestly for the ball, to jump naturally. He is not trying to gain an advantage or stop the header on goal. It is a complete accident.
"But our reaction from that moment was not good enough. We conceded a poor third goal and the game runs away from us. The penalty (is not an excuse). We had other moments in the game where defensively we were not good enough and were second best. The moments went against us but I feel we took a big step forwards last week and a big one backwards today.”
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