O'Leary left mincing words

No stranger to the earnest-cum-patronising remark, the Villa manager told his Wigan counterpart Paul Jewell that he hoped his side would stay up at a pre-season manager's meeting. An Aaron Hughes own goal and second-half strike from Alan Mahon strengthened that prospect by lifting the Latics to fourth, while also underlying Jewell's riposte that "I hope you do too". Villa now lie 15^th, but according to O'Leary they only had themselves to blame: "I don't think the lads could believe they were down at half-time considering the number of chances we had in the first 45 minutes.

"But this game is about chances - and taking them. I saw Arsenal lose at West Brom last week after missing a load of opportunities and it was the same with us on this occasion. Good luck to Wigan and Paul Jewell but we should have been well in command at half-time. The game should have been over. In the second half we had all the play but did not create much and the second goal on the break was a killer. I'm disappointed because we need to get on a good run of results if we are to climb the table."

The Irishman may now seek to hasten the return of a number of injured players to lift the spirit in the team. "Maybe a few heads went down after the missed chances," O'Leary continued, "but the players have got to be big enough to deal with that. Maybe things will improve when we have some of our big players back from injury like Milan Baroš and Gavin McCann."