Aston Villa's Leander Dendoncker: All not lost in race for Europe
Leander Dendoncker has urged Villa not to lose heart as they aim to quickly get their challenge for Europe back on track in Saturday’s derby at Wolves.
Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester United ended a 10-match unbeaten run for Unai Emery’s team and saw them fall a place to seventh in the Premier League table.
But with a fixture list which sees them face all of their rivals in the Europa League race after Saturday’s trip to Molineux, Dendoncker insists all is far from lost.
He said: “We have to keep going, keep being confident in what we are doing and I am sure it will come.
“It wasn’t a bad performance (on Sunday). We missed the finishing touch a couple of times and maybe we did not put them under enough pressure.
“We have been playing well with outstanding results. At some point it is going to be difficult.
“You just try to do your best every week and I think on Sunday we had two or three chances but the ball didn’t go in.
“If you concede, it is always going to be hard against a team like Manchester United. We just have to keep going and we will be OK.”
Bruno Fernandes bagged the only goal at Old Trafford after Marcus Rashford had got in behind the Villa defence.
Dendoncker said: “They had a specific strategy of trying to get balls in behind our defence and they managed to do that pretty well because they have good passers in Eriksen, Bruno and Casemiro.
“They made us run back quite a lot but I think we defended pretty well. They were offside on a number of occasions and the goal was a tight one.”
