Aston Villa defender Bjorn Engels has said that Aston Villa’s poor start to the Premier League season has resulted from a couple of dismal 15-minute spells. The west Midlands outfit have already lost against Tottenham Hotspur and Bournemouth at the beginning of the campaign and they are presently just above the drop zone on goal difference.
In a report covered by Goal.com, Engels said that the mood within the squad is fine despite the successive defeats on the club’s return to the top-flight. He added that the results have come about from a couple of 15-minute stints where they have switched off and hopefully, they can redeem themselves during the forthcoming games, he said: “We'll be fine. He mood is quite good. We played and had two defeats but I think we played good games.
“The performance against Spurs was good until the last 15 minutes when we went behind and, against Bournemouth, the first 15 minutes not so good because we went behind. I think we need to improve more, like the last hour against Bournemouth and we'll be fine I think. I've already played two games. We need to get some points as quickly as possible. The problem why we have no points is because of our own mistakes, if we cut them out we'll be fine for the rest of the season. We've created a lot of chances.”
Villa produced a strong showing against Spurs during the second opener and they held onto a 1-0 lead for more than an hour. However, they thereafter went through an anxious period where they conceded three goals much to the disappointment of the fans. Since then, they have suffered another 2-1 loss to Bournemouth at home but they made a better account of themselves.
The Cherries managed to find the net twice within the opening 15 minutes of the encounter and thereafter, Dean Smith’s men took charge of the proceedings. Douglas Luiz scored his maiden goal on his full debut for the newly-promoted outfit but that was not sufficient as the Cherries managed to withstand the pressure during the final stages.