Martin O'Neill insists race is still on for Aston Villa

Mar 17 2008 By Bill Howell

MARTIN O'Neill has hinted at a loss of belief in his squad but is confident they can recover from a nightmare week to salvage their season.

A home draw against Middlesbrough and defeat to Portsmouth have left Villa's European dreams looking rather less secure than they were after back-to-back wins against Newcastle and Reading and a tremendous point at Arsenal.

The Villa boss said: "Last Wednesday afternoon we were looking forward to some big matches and we are now sitting with one point.

"We've got to put it right. We've got eight games to go, we have a lot of points to pick up and if we get back to a real genuine belief about ourselves we can do it."

O'Neill is in no doubt Villa would have picked up something at Fratton Park had they been able to take their chances.

"Whatever you boil it down to, it is about taking chances, and it is about saving them at the other end," he said.

"You take the game on its merits. It's the first time we failed to score since September 16. We have been up there and we have scored a few.

"We are obviously disappointed. It was an opportunity to try and rectify things from the Middlesbrough game.

"We started off brightly enough then conceded not such a clever goal. The second goal was pure fluke. That put us on the back foot but at half-time we were well in the game.

"I thought if we got the next goal, relatively early, then we could put them under a great deal of pressure.

"We spurned that opportunity (with Agbonlahor's miss), but I genuinely thought at half-time that it was far from beyond us.

"We had as much of the play as they had. It was just disappointing."