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Steven Gerrard blames lack of cutting edge for draw against 10-man Leeds United

Steven Gerrard
Steven Gerrard believes his side lost two points and a chance to move up the tabe in their draw with Leeds United.

Aston Villa played out a goalless draw away at Leeds despite their opponents playing with 10 men for half the game.

Luis Sinisterra was sent off in the 48th minute and despite registering 19 shots in the match, Aston Villa could not find a way beyond Illan Meslier.

“I’m scratching my head and I’m frustrated and I’m sure my attacking players will be as well because we created more than enough to win this match,” Villa boss Steven Gerrard said at full-time. “We came here to frustrate Leeds and maybe we would have taken the point before the game but we could have had three.

“It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t question my attacking players and I need more quality. We have had 19 shots on goal and 12 inside the area so we need to be better. Leeds defended well and dug in and you would expect that but we created more than enough and it was that last bit that was missing. If we had found that we would have been happy.

“At times Leeds wanted to go to war and we did that. We frustrated Leeds and the crowd. When our moments came we got the ball into the right areas and to the people we wanted to but it didn’t happen.

“We need more goals. We need our attacking players to step forward and be more ruthless. That tally [six goals so far] is not enough at this stage of the season and we know where we want to go. We keep working and putting the sessions on a rehearsing the moments that will come their way. We have improved slightly defensively and we need to continue that but we need to keep creating these moments and hopefully our players will gobble them up.

“It feels like we dropped two points today and we missed an opportunity to take two more points and move into the middle of the league. It was very frustrating. I don’t think there was much wrong with our performance today, even 11v11 we felt we had the best moments at our points.

“We came here to frustrate Leeds, we came here for a competitive game and the players really stood up well in large parts of this game. We got in the right areas, we created more than enough chances and that will feel slightly more frustrating because a big part of the second half was against ten men.

“But that can happen. Credit to Leeds, they defended well, they got a little bit of luck and we go away frustrated at taking one point because three was there for us as well. It’s down to individuals taking their chances and if we do then we’re talking about three points rather than one.”

Aston Villa are 14th on the table, just two points above the relegation zone. Steven Gerrard will hope his forwards can start scoring, with his team managing to score only 6 goals so far in the league.

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