Wolves boss Gary O’Neil admits hearing the Aston Villa bragging rights was hard to take after his side were the ‘better team’ for the first half an hour at Villa Park.
Goals from Moussa Diaby and Ezri Konsa secured all three points for Unai Emery’s men to maintain a three-point lead over Tottenham in the race for Champions League football.
“The only thing I’m disappointed with is the result,” O’Neil said. “Performance-wise, there was loads and loads of positives – more shots, more possession, higher xG away to Aston Villa with the issues we have is an unbelievable effort from the players.
“Obviously we didn’t come here to lose, so I’m really disappointed that we did and I understand how tough that is for the supporters having to listen to Aston Villa supporters enjoying themselves and singing their songs.
“But that performance, I can sign up for, no problem. It will be enough to win us enough games and keep us moving in the right direction.
“It’s a very tough place to come and for the lads to create opportunities and start the game like they did, being the better team by a long way for half an hour.”
O’Neil once again bemoaned his injury problems, adding: “You add Pedro Neto, [Matheus] Cunha to that xG and I’m sure it would have mattered. We take it on the chin and we get ready for Tuesday.
“We end up 1-0 down and it relieves pressure around the place even though we were having loads and loads of joy. It’s one we have to take and get ready for Burnley.
“Some big moments either end, two of theirs go in and ours didn’t. I can only ask them to give as much as they did and they did. We can tidy up on some of the goals. In terms of the team and giving everything, they did that.
“Cunha is doing great, miles ahead off schedule. He wanted to be involved today but we needed to be steady. Pedro is more serious. When they come back they’ll give some real attacking threat to the boys already available.”
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