O’Neill Rues Lack Of Cutting Edge

Martin O’Neill rued the lack of a cutting edge as Villa finished 1-1 against a poor Middlesbrough at Villa Park.

O’Neill said: ‘In many ways it was a frustrating afternoon for us. I thought we played some very nice football at times, but all too often we didn’t have a cutting edge. But we showed the character to come from a goal behind and I thought, as the second-half wore on, we never stopped pushing for a winner. It wasn’t to be and that is hard on the players. The game just exploded into life at the end of the first-half. I haven’t yet seen their goal on TV, but I understand it was offside. Those things happen and you have to get on with it.’

‘We didn’t let our heads drop and in virtually the next instant, we launched a great attack and had the penalty. I gather they’re not too pleased with the penalty decision, but these things even themselves out don’t they – not always as quickly as that. Gareth deserves a lot of credit for scoring yet another penalty. He put one away very confidently in training yesterday and I was very calm as he stepped-up. I had every confidence he was going to score.’

‘Even if we hadn’t got the penalty, I was confident we had enough to score in the second-half. As it turned out, I was wrong there, but we never stopped trying.’

Match report to follow…….