Steven Gerrard says he takes full responsibility for failing at Aston Villa, but did also claim some of the players weren t giving it there all in his time at Villa Park.
joined Aston Villa in November 2021 but lasted less than a year with Villa languishing in 17th with nine points from 11 games when he was shown the door.
Unai Emery replaced them and has taken them into the Champions League in his first full season, leaving Gerrard open to criticism as the Spaniard has done so with many of the same players.
Gerrard has since taken charge of Al-Ettifaq – leading to further reproval from many – and led them to sixth in the Saudi Pro League in his first season at the helm.
Gerrard blames himself for work-shy Villans
The former England international admits his sacking by Villa hurt and revealed he sought the advice of Sir Alex Ferguson before taking the job at Al Ettifaq.
: I think when top footballers are not performing at their level I am not going to pull any punches. We had players who weren’t giving what I felt they should have been giving at the time and that’s my responsibility.
Villa is a fantastic club. It was an incredible opportunity at the time and I have nothing bad to say. The owners gave me a fantastic chance. The initial period, our form was top eight in the Premier League and obviously the opinion of me now from a lot of people will be that I failed, if you like, but I know there was a period there where we got an awful lot of things right. We had the team doing okay.
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