Martin O'Neill calls for more brain power

Mar 13 2008 By Bill Howell

VILLA must learn to use their brains and break down teams at home, according to Martin O'Neill, who saw his UEFA Cup dream take a battering against Middlesbrough.

O'Neill is far from happy at the lack of chances created in last night's 1-1 draw.

"We know teams might come and sit back, but it's up to us to deal with that," he said.

"We have to try and be a wee bit more inventive and a wee bit more clever.

"The onus is on us to go and attack and try to break teams down and we were incapable.

"We had the opportunity to close the gap on Liverpool and Everton, but that failed to materialise.

"When you consider how well we played at Arsenal, there was a huge difference between that display and what we produced last night.

"We were very flat and we stayed flat for so long. And normally we can pull ourselves around and anyone who saw us play at Arsenal would not believe this was the same side basically.

"Middlesbrough played very well and caused us plenty of problems but if we are going to be contesting this we have to win games when we are not playing at our best.

"We didn't play well at all. We might have improved in the second half but not to the extent of meriting a victory.

"It's really disappointing because we thought we were ready on the back of a great performance at Arsenal and some excellent performances elsewhere."