Martin O'Neill praises scorer Cesc Fabregas after Aston Villa lose to Arsenal

Dec 28 2009 by Lisa Smith, Birmingham Mail

MARTIN O’Neill saw his Villa side suffer their heaviest defeat of the season but said the 3-0 scoreline had somewhat flattered Arsenal.

And rather than criticise his battling side’s performance, he preferred to pay homage to the player who inflicted such a wound on his team – two-goal Arsenal substitute Cesc Fabregas.

The Spaniard was only on the pitch for 27 minutes after coming on as a replacement for Denilson before being substituted himself.

His first was a sweetly-struck free-kick and the other came from open play before Abou Diaby added a third.

O’Neill said: “It probably was unfair but I am not overly concerned about that. We were chasing the game in the end having been right in it until Fabregas’ free-kick.

“His contribution was immense when he came on.”

O’Neill admitted he did not have much time to put things right with Liverpool the visitors to Villa Park tomorrow.

“We just have to get on with it,” he said. “We have a major game coming up in a few hours against Liverpool and we have to go again.”

There are those will try to use this game as a barometer of how far Villa have come this season but O’Neill was keen to deflect that.

“I think if you look at the bigger picture you can draw all sorts of conclusions from one game,” he said,

“We were away from home. This is one disappointment. We worked well to close them down but then gave the ball away too cheaply.”

O’Neill added: “Coming here is always difficult. We have beaten Liverpool and Manchester United away from home and our record at the Emirates up until today has been pretty strong.

“We have been beaten by a fine side who contest big games. If there is anything to be learned we will do that but we have just got to keep going.”

The Villa boss insisted no-one at Villa Park was getting carried away this season.

“You can get carried away,” he said. “But we are not. We won at Old Trafford and did very well indeed.

“We tried to follow it up at Sunderland and did that. Then we played Stoke.

“What I am saying is I can’t prevent people reading things into us this season

“We are where we are in the league because we deserve to be. We have got to try and maintain that form now.”

O’Neill admitted his plan to play an unchanged side for the fifth game in a row may have backfired with his side looking tired late on.

“We have played this side for the last few weeks and think now with the heavy programme and Liverpool round the corner we may need to look at it again,’’ he said.

“We also have the FA Cup against Blackburn and two League Cup matches against them that will test us.

“Come the end of January we may have a better indication of how we have done and whether we can sustain it.”