Dean Smith felt Aston Villa produced an unrecognisable performance as they fell to a 3-2 defeat against Watford on the opening day of the Premier League season.
Last season’s team was built around keeping clean sheets, but the visitors found themselves 3-0 down after 67 minutes at Vicarage Road.
Despite being heartened by a late fightback, Smith bemoaned a poor first half as Villa trailed 2-0 at the break.
He said: “I’m disappointed, ruing a really poor first half performance. It was a first half performance that was unrecognisable from what we’re usually about.
“The togetherness, the team shift, we allowed them to score two counter-attacking goals and gave ourselves a mountain to climb at half-time.”
John McGinn and debutant Danny Ings grabbed the Villa goals as the away side gave the travelling fans something to cheer late on.
But Smith knows his new-look team will have to gel quickly as they now look ahead to their home opener next Saturday.
He said: “We want them [new signings] to settle in quicker than that. We’ve got another game against Newcastle United next week.
“Some of our play was ok in the second half, but we didn’t play at the tempo I want from our team.”
On the Villa Park support, Smith added: “We’re certainly going to need it. We can’t perform like that in front of our home fans at Villa Park.
“They’ve travelled in their numbers today and they’ll certainly be disappointed with that first half performance.”
Watch Dean Smith's full VillaTV interview below...