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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Robbie Copeland

Steven Gerrard rues familiar Rangers issue as Aston Villa boss admits Edouard threat came back to haunt him

Steven Gerrard harked back to his days at Rangers as he bemoaned a lack of "ruthlessness" in Aston Villa's draw with Crystal Palace.

And the former Ibrox boss admits his old Celtic rival Odsonne Edouard played his part with the aerial threat he brought to the table.

Gerrard has endured a mixed start to life at Villa Park with a lack of consistency preventing them from hunting down the European spots.

They conceded late against Palace as Jeffrey Schlupp's strike dented their prospects of a top half finish.

A lack of ruthlessness was something he criticised at Rangers before his Premier League return. After a 1-1 draw with Motherwell in September, he insisted his players "only had themselves to blame" in a game they "should have won 3 or 4 nil."

And it was the same story as he spoke to the media after the Palace clash as he said: "We needed to take control of that and take maximum points today but my players are frustrated and I really like it.

"Hopefully, we can take that frustration out on Burnley on Thursday night because if we want to be a more consistent team at home, we have to be more ruthless and clinical in front of goal.

"That's two games now in a short space of time where we're a little frustrated we haven't taken the big chances that we're creating. We're doing ever so well to create them.

"You look at Southampton, for example, where everything clicks in and you take your chances. A lot of away games we've been ruthless.

"At Burnley, we were clinical to take the points. We've had chances; Man City late on to sneak a draw, chances against Liverpool, Tottenham in the first half.

"We had chances again today. But you look at who had the clearer of chances, Danny (Ings) had a couple in the first half where you expect him to burst the net with his quality. Ollie (Watkins) has a header cleared off the line and gets put through on a tight angle. I think we created enough to score more than one goal today."

It was a set-piece that ultimately cost Villa the three points and it came moments after Edouard was thrown on by Patrick Vieira to find the equaliser.

Gerrard admitted he was wary of the threat posed in the air by Edouard and his strike partner Christian Benteke.

Conceding their defending from set-pieces was another big weakness, Gerrard added: "We need to cut out the moments.

"We said that Crystal Palace carry a threat and they were throwing more profile at the game in terms of Benteke and Edouard, big guys, so we knew they were becoming more dangerous at set-plays.

"To concede that foul in the final third when there was no need to was naïve. But, once we accepted that, we need to deal with the first ball which we did. Second phase, we were caught sleeping so we've got ourselves to blame and that's where the frustration has come from."

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