A Tough One To Swallow

Thomas Sorensen says the 2-0 loss to Liverpool was ‘a tough one to swallow’ but is sure that Villa will start to pull themselves away from the bottom of the table as long as they keep working like they did against the Reds.

Sorenson, who was upset at the ‘controversial’ penalty decision, said: ‘It was looking like a clean sheet and it was sad after all the hard work we put in. One bad decision ruined it for us but that’s the situation we’re in. It was a tough one to swallow and I don’t think I’ve been this disappointed for a very long time. On the other hand, if we keep playing like we did, we’ll soon be in a different position because we put some things right during the week that we’d been doing wrong for quite some time now. We rectified things on Saturday – for example we held a higher line. Against Manchester City on the Monday, we gave their strikers too much room.’

I must admit, from where I was sitting, the shape and organisation of the defence was much better than of late, although it has to be said, Liverpool did squander a few excellent chances to put the game to bed before ‘that’ penalty decision.

Sorenson added: ‘If you talk to Liverpool’s players, I think they will have found things really difficult. After the first 25 minutes when we didn’t play particularly well but worked hard, we got into the game. And, as the game progressed I thought we were the better team, but a bad decision cost us. They both went for the ball and I think Crouchy just slipped and Ridge obviously fell with him. I’ve seen it on telly as well and in my view, it’s not a penalty – even if I wasn’t a Villa player. So it’s tough to take. Had they scored a great goal or had it been a clear penalty, then you couldn’t have really said anything. But it’s tough when it wasn’t even 50-50.’

He also says that Villa have got to put that behind them and move forward (and hopefully upwards!) ‘Now we need to look forward – the season hasn’t ended and we can take a lot of positives and if we continue down that route, we’ll get out of this situation. We need to score goals as well. I think the defence put in a fantastic performance, so we could’ve done with a goal at the other end.’ According to some statistics, Villa only had one shot on target, I assume that was McCann’s first half attempt. Their keeper was certainly not very stressed for the 90 minutes, in fact, he must have been bored stiff!

He also says the team couldn’t ask for anymore from the fans: ‘The crowd were anxious but you can’t ask for more than 42,500. I think they just needed a goal to lift the whole atmosphere but we have to do it on the pitch no matter what comes from the stands. I thought the crowd was great and we couldn’t fault them.’