John McGinn felt Aston Villa were well below their best in Wednesday night’s Premier League defeat against West Ham United.
With the score at 0-0 at half-time, there appeared to be little between the two sides.
But after the break, the Hammers ruthlessly punished Villa on the counter-attack as they ran out 3-1 winners, and McGinn felt his team were out of sorts.
He said: “I’m disappointed and frustrated. The disappointment is we know we’re a good team and we didn’t show that enough tonight.
“It took until we went 2-0 down to cause them problems. We did that, got a goal back and we deserved it at that point. We could have kicked on and got the equaliser, but we conceded a cheap goal.
“The manner of the goals we lost tonight was disappointing. If we want to do what we can achieve this season, then we need to be a lot more street-wise and tighter as a team.”
It was a rare off night for Dean Smith’s side, who’ve won many plaudits this season for their vast improvement from last term.
McGinn felt the manner of the loss was in stark contrast to last weekend’s battling win against Southampton, but the midfielder says the team will put it right when they take on Arsenal on Saturday.
“It’s disappointing because Saturday (vs Southampton) was such a huge result for us and the manner of it,” he said.
“We had good team spirit and some great blocks in there, but I don’t think there was enough of that tonight – not team spirit, that will always be there, but we need to fight the same way we did at Southampton to get three points.
“We have to do that on Saturday. We’ve got to do more, that goes for all of us. It’s another tough game, but if we want to achieve things this year then it’s got to be three points.”