Unai Emery rues Aston Villa 'mistakes' as another opportunity wasted against Crystal Palace
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery rued his side's mistakes after being held to a 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace at Villa Park.
Ross Barkley levelled the game up in the 77th minute by heading in Youri Tielemans' corner, but Villa should have gone into the break with the lead after being awarded a penalty shortly after Ollie Watkins' goal in the 36th minute. Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson made a brilliant save to deny Youri Tielemans, before the visitors made it 2-1 when Justin Devenny scored at the Holte End in first half added time.
"Of course, here at home we were thinking about how strong we were when we were winning 15 matches in a row and how we can recover that confidence and energy here, imposing our game plan and winning the match," Emery said in his post-match press conference.
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"This is the first step we want to do here. We are losing some opportunities, but not in the way [we played] against Bournemouth and like we played today. We are conceding a few chances from the opponent and they are scoring goals.
"We are making mistakes and they are scoring. We are not getting points like we deserved. There is still work to do. We are really convinced this is the way we played here at home this year in the Premier League, not getting three points but deserving in each match, more or less, to win.
"Even when we lost to Arsenal we played well. We drew to Manchester United and Bournemouth too. Today we drew but we played well. We are making some mistakes and we are getting punished a lot. This is the work we need to do.
"We are being very demanding to find the consistency we had last year. We have to believe that we can get a good balance in everything we do."
Asked if it is his toughest spell as Villa manager so far, Emery said: "It depends. Two years ago when we arrived, we lost two matches in a row against Arsenal 4-2 and Leicester 4-2. In that moment it was something not good. Now, more or less, we have the same sort of momentum."