Aston Villa boss De Pauw reflects on first win and discusses decisive next steps

Aston Villa manager Robert de Pauw was full of praise for match-winner Ebony Salmon but admitted that there are still some steps to take following his side’s narrow 3-2 victory over Crystal Palace.

On a cold and wet afternoon at Villa Park, Aston Villa fell behind to a My Cato goal after half an hour. The Villans responded and Anna Patten and Rachel Daly both scored to turn the contest in the hosts’ favour before Annabel Blanchard levelled for Crystal Palace late in the game. The match looked set to end level until Salmon popped up with a winning goal for Aston Villa in the fourth minute of stoppage time.

When speaking in the post-match press conference, Aston Villa manager De Pauw gave an honest assessment of his team’s performance.

“If I look at my own team, I see that we should have killed them off earlier,” De Pauw said. “We had three good chances in the first 10 minutes; they have one counter, they score. We didn’t look good in that moment, so if I’m critical at that, it’s surely something we have to address.

“We kept composure and kept playing which I liked. We bounced back, we scored two really good goals and we had some more chances. In the second half, we were totally dominant, giving nothing away then you show the game as it is; one moment and it drops in again which is very frustrating. I had the feeling; are we still going to manage to get the win?”

The Aston Villa boss went on to praise substitute Salmon for the impact that she made late in the game.

He said “Fresh legs came in. Ebony Salmon has been very patient this season. She’s not been getting a lot of minutes but has been training hard, doing her best for the team and has remained patient which is sometimes frustrating from her side. I think that last shot of hers was everything she had and maybe all of the frustration she had. She rewarded herself, but she especially rewarded the fans, the team, the staff and the organisation, so I’m very happy for her and the team that she shot it in like that.”

One criticism of Aston Villa this season has been their lack of clinical finishing and De Pauw explained how they will become more consistent with the help of ex-Premier League forward Shaun Goater who joined the club in the summer.

He said “We have a good build-up from the back but in that last phase, it’s also down to the quality of the players. It’s up to those strikers to work on that and keep improving. We create chances in every game, so it’s up to them with the help of Shaun.

“We train a lot at the moment on finishing and crossing because sometimes, I think it’s not only the finishing but the crosses are not accurate enough or we make the wrong choices. Going for shots with our weaker leg, when we have time to go for shots with our strong leg or we have to train our weaker leg some more. We put them constantly in situations where they have to make the right decisions in front of the goal and then we hope we see the improvement.”

Aston Villa are next in action on Saturday afternoon when they travel to Tottenham Hotspur for a Women’s League Cup group stage fixture.