Ollie Watkins gives an honest opinion on Ipswich’s draw

Unai Emery’s team fought back from a losing position for the third weekend in a row but could not hold on to the lead this time as Liam Delap equalized with his second goal of the game with 18 minutes left.

Watkins, who had earlier given Villa the lead after Morgan Rogers canceled out Delap’s opener, gave an honest assessment of a frustrating afternoon.

“It was a difficult game and I think a point is a fair result,” he said. “We didn’t get it right in the final third, we could have been more ruthless, myself included.”

“One point is a fair result, but disappointing because we had a lot of opportunities.”

“They always put us under a lot of pressure and we couldn’t really execute our game plan. Ipswich were always superior to us and it was a bit like a basketball game, which is what they wanted, but we didn’t do it.”

A win would see Villa move level on points with Premier League leaders Liverpool, but they had goalkeeper Emi Martinez to thank for a one-on-one save from Delap in the first half, shortly after Watkins’ goal.

Emery pointed out that his team conceded ten corners during the game, which was a sign of their lack of control.

“We conceded 10 corners and what’s the question?” he said. “We didn’t control the ball or our positioning to prevent them from reaching our penalty area. They didn’t score from corners, but it showed we had no control.”

The Villa boss continued: “Overall we have 13 points but today we were also optimistic about the possibility of coming to Liverpool with 15 points.”

“We can accept how difficult this league and the away game is, against a team like Ipswich who are excited and have a good structure tactically.

“They play with confidence and that is the difficulty we faced in 90 minutes today. In the first half we played even better than I had planned to stop their game plan and their ability to push us forward.

“In the second half they played the way I thought they would in the second half. Of course we had to be stronger than we were in that moment.”