Alex McLeish ‘annoyed’ by Aston Villa’s defensive frailties

Alex McLeish has revealed his annoyance at Aston Villa’s lack of clean sheets, claiming 'soft goals' have cost his side too many points this season.

The Villans have kept the opposition at bay just once in their last 13 games, which came in a 0-0 draw again Stoke, and the 53-year-old boss has insisted his team may need to play ugly to stem the flow of goals they are conceding.

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"I'm more annoyed and angry than anything else now,” McLeish told the club’s official website.

"We played ever so well in parts of the game, yet we conceded such soft goals again. Whether it's sloppiness with defenders or we're just going through one of those spells where everything that falls goes to the opposition?”

Assessing on Sunday’s defeat at Newcastle, the Scot concluded that slack defending and a lucky strike allowed Senegalese striking duo Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse to each claim a goal: "Cisse would try that another ten times and wouldn't do that again. The first goal was tame in my opinion though.

"We don't close down a throw-in, something as simple as a throw-in! We have got to be prepared to die to stop balls coming in from the sides.

"We have let too many of them come in this season and it was a problem last season aswell.

"All I can do is keep working on it and keep imploring players to be vigilant in the centre and stop crosses coming from wide areas and deal with it.

"Off the ball we need all our players to be vigilant and be doing the ugly work aswell, like stopping the balls coming into the box.

"Every component of the team needs to be on it. We can't have any passengers. It's a crucial period for us coming up.

"It's frustrating. We have played pretty well, except the collapse at Arsenal.

"But we have to get back to shut-outs. We have to show the five internationals at the back - or whoever we bring to play in the back five - have what it takes to stop goals."