Ezri Konsa admits Aston Villa need to improve defensively after fresh setback

Ezri Konsa admits Aston Villa need to tighten up defensively after leaking five goals in back-to-back defeats.

Villa’s 3-1 loss to Chelsea on Boxing Day was followed by a narrow 2-1 reverse at Brentford on Sunday.

The Bees only created three genuine goalscoring opportunities, but converted two of them, to the frustration of their former defender.

“We’re very disappointed,” Konsa told VillaTV. “We had a lot of the ball throughout the whole game. I felt that first half we should have killed the game, we dominated that half.

“We didn’t really create enough clear-cut chances in the second half and obviously we know that, in the Premier League, if you give away chances then you will get punished, and that’s what happened to us.

“In the first half they had one chance, which they scored, and second half I think they had two chances and one was a goal.

“We’ve conceded five goals in two games now and it’s something we need to stop doing and something we need to improve on.

“How? By going back into the training ground, going back to basics. By going over the game, seeing where we went wrong, seeing what we can do better going into the next game.

“And I think, us as defenders, looking at last season and the way we were hard to beat, that’s something that we need to go back to quickly.”

Villa led through an early Danny Ings strike but Yoane Wissa hauled Brentford level by half-time, and Mads Roerslev’s first senior goal gave them the points.

The already-depleted Bees were hit by more injuries, to winger Sergi Canos and midfielder Mathias Jenson, but boss Thomas Frank is hopeful neither are too serious.

“It’s a hip for problem Mathias, and for Sergi it’s a hamstring. I hope neither are major,” he said.