Zat Knight: Aston Villa defence is not good enough

Apr 14 2009 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail

“We haven’t had a settled back four, but everyone’s played together before so I think that’s just an excuse. I don’t know what it is. If I knew what it was I’d be the manager wouldn’t I?

“There are some very soft goals. There’s times when we are dropping off too deep and they are getting a run at us.

“But we’ve got six games to put it right and we’ll just have to sort it out for ourselves.”

Knight admitted Villa’s defensive problems were particularly prominent during the first-half against Everton.

“From a fans’ point of view the Everton game was great to watch,” he said.

“But from our point of view it was disappointing to score three goals and to concede three goals,” he said.

“We’re expecting, if we are going to score three goals, to win the game, but it wasn’t to be. First half, defensively, we weren’t at the races. Second half we showed that we can be a lot better.

“We need to start the way we did second-half.

“To bounce back like we did shows there’s still a bit of fire in us and still a bit of belief and going forward I thought we were excellent, but we spoiled it in the first-half with the two goals we conceded.

“I think their third goal was a very well worked goal with a good finish at the end and I don’t think you can do much about goals like that.’’