Unai Emery urged supporters to maintain a sense of realism following Aston Villa’s setback against Everton at the weekend.
The defeat raised fresh doubts about whether Villa possess genuine credentials to challenge for the Premier League title this season.
Concerns centre on the current condition of Emery’s squad, which appears stretched thin at a crucial stage of the campaign.
Villa will likely require additional signings in the transfer window if they hope to sustain their push near the top of the table.
A solitary strike from Thierno Barry in the second half proved decisive as Everton secured all three points at Villa Park.
The result brought an abrupt end to Villa’s remarkable run of 11 consecutive home league victories.
Victory would have seen Emery’s men leapfrog Manchester City into second position in the standings.
Furthermore, the gap to table-toppers Arsenal could have been reduced to just four points had Villa won.
Unai Emery urged supporters to maintain a sense of realism following Aston Villa’s setback against Everton at the weekend
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Emery said: “We are doing a fantastic season. When we played at Everton (in September), we drew and we were worse than now.
“Of course today we lost a very good opportunity and we are in front of other teams who are competing to be in the position we are.
“We lost the opportunity to be second in the league, something fantastic.
“But after feeling our frustration at losing this match, we must try and recover our good, positive way we are doing.
The defeat raised fresh doubts about whether Villa possess genuine credentials to challenge for the Premier League title this season
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GETTY
He added: “Football is to win, to lose, or to draw. When you are losing you are sad, like we are now, when you are winning you are happy and mostly we have had more time happy than sad.
“We are frustrated, disappointed, but everything we did before is for something and we lost the opportunity to be second in the league.
“But our target in the Premier League is to try to get our best in 38 matches and until the day 34, I’m not going to speak about where we can finish.”
Everton became the first team to win at Villa Park since August and they are just four points behind city rivals Liverpool – who currently occupy fourth position – and are also in contention for European contention.
David Moyes will be relieved his side were able to get the job done after they had a goal controversially ruled out in the first half after Harrison Armstrong was deemed to have been interfering from an offside position after Jake O’Brien had headed in.
Barry lifted the ball delicately over the stranded goalkeeper and into the net | GETTY
He said: “I couldn’t get a closer angle of it to see exactly, but I think he’s in an offside position. But where he jumps, I don’t know if that’s enough to interfere. I’m sure it is nowadays.
“I don’t know if the ball was ever getting to Harrison. We’ve had quite a period of the moment where there’s very few decisions gone for us, whether it be getting people sent off, or hitting each other, or pulling hair or something else.
“So there’s an awful lot going against us recently. That was another one today.”
On his side’s display, he added: “It’s a brilliant performance, with what we had coming here, it looked a big challenge with the players we had out.
“It was a huge day for two or three players who stepped up.”
