Under-fire Steven Gerrard refused to make Tyrone Mings the scapegoat as luckless Aston Villa 's tailspin spiralled towards the drop zone.
Mings' dreadful error handed two-goal Mason Mount Chelsea's opener – but Gerrard, who stripped Mings of the Villa captaincy earlier this year, stood by his crestfallen England defender. He said: “I've been in dressing rooms where people have made mistakes and they don't even take responsibility for them. Tyrone has done that but his reaction was superb.”
While Villa's players were applauded off, boss Gerrard copped some flak from pockets of fans as Villa slipped to within a point of the relegation places.
But he took his medicine stoically and said: "I'd be stupid not to be aware of where we're at and accept that. I won't hide from the criticism.
"I was aware of all the shouts which came from behind the bench, but I don't think all of them were directed at me from a personal point of view. I heard a group signing from the Holte End, I'm aware of it all. But I have to accept it and try to do everything I can to change the way they are feeling.
"If the players can replicate the first hour of this performance, they won't have an issue. The scoreline flatters Chelsea in terms of how the game planned out. I'm still in a little bit of disbelief we haven't got at least a couple of goals."
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Gerrard insisted that his players had deserved more from their performance against the Blues. And he is confident they will be able to pick up what would be a vital three points at Fulham on Thursday if they can replicate it.
“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," he added to Villa TV.
“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.
“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.”
