Aston Villa boss Unai Emery admits his side are “making mistakes” following the 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace at Villa Park.
The result left Villa without a win from their last six matches in all competitions as they head into another tough Champions League fixture against Juventus in midweek.
Ismaila Sarr put the visitors in front when he expertly finished past Emiliano Martinez before Ollie Watkins rounded Dean Henderson to level things up.
Youri Tielemans saw his spot-kick saved by Henderson before Justin Devenny went down the other end to put Palace in position for a first away league win of the season with his first professional goal 57 seconds later, but Ross Barkley’s equaliser ensured Villa a share of the spoils.
Villa stopped the rot of four straight defeats in all competitions with a draw but it has been over a month since they last tasted victory.
Emery said: “We were thinking how strong we were when we were winning 15 matches in a row. And how we can again recover this confidence, this energy, this capacity to be here.
“We dominated the match. We conceded a few chances for the opponents and they are scoring goals, we are making mistakes and they are scoring and we are not getting the points we deserve but still work to do.
“We played here at home this year in the Premier League not getting three points but we deserved them in each match to win.
“Today we drew but played well. But we are making mistakes and getting punished a lot and this is work to do. We are more or less being demanding to try and keep going with the same consistency we had last year.”
Villa conceded twice on the counter-attack against Liverpool last time out and they were again punished following their own corner as Devenny put Palace 2-1 in front.
Emery admits his side worked on that in training but still fell victim to conceding a goal in that fashion.
He added: “We were deeply analysing the transition against Liverpool, today was different but even like that they did it.
“Against Liverpool we had two around the box and today we had three around the box. But of course the correction is how many players we can have in the balance and how we react and respond when they are running at us.
“Defensively we didn’t fix the players like we prepared and the transition of the second goal from our corner.”
Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner hailed 21-year-old Devenny, who bagged his first goal on just his second start for the club.
Glasner said: “He came from our academy and was with us in pre-season and he showed here he’s an unbelievable footballer.
“He’s very technical but he can also run a lot and he can play four positions in our system.
“If you’re a quality player who works so hard then you get your reward. But he’s still at the beginning so we keep him back so he can develop in the right way.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here