BROWNHILL PROUD OF BATTLING PERFORMANCE

Midfielder on narrow loss at Villa Park

Captain Josh Brownhill was frustrated following the Clarets narrow 3-2 defeat to Aston Villa on Saturday afternoon but felt there were many pleasing elements of his side’s battling performance.

At 2-2, it was an 89th minute penalty which was converted by Douglas Luiz that saw the the home team secure the win, leaving Brownhill disappointed not to come away with a point.

“Very frustrating. I thought we put out a great performance overall, more second half I thought we defended very well going down to ten men and I thought we were still right in the game.

“Defended very well, we had some chances and to come away with nothing at all is very frustrating.”

The visitors came from behind twice, no easy feat against an Unai Emery side who are unbeaten at home since February this year, and Brownhill was happy to see the squad show such resilience and quality.

“To put on a performance like that here, where they’re excellent at home and have been doing very well in the league as I say is something that we can be proud about. It’s a little bit unlucky that we didn’t come away with anything.

“Yes [the penalty], it’s a frustrating thing and I’m sure Rambo will learn from that. You know it’s one of those things, it happens and they put the ball in the back of the net, it’s frustrating.”

The Clarets goals on the day came from Zeki Amdouni and Lyle Foster and Brownhill was delighted for both, especially Lyle, on his return following a break out of the game.

“I think both of them were really, really good. Zeki gets his goal and for Lyle, a terrific performance, something he can be really proud of and for us I’m just delighted that he’s put in that performance. Everything that he’s been through recently, I can tell that goal meant a lot to him and for us as players. So, hopefully that form can continue for him because he put out a really good shift today.”

Manager Vincent Kompany regularly speaks about key moments in both boxes and when asked how he felt the team dealt with this over the course of the game, the midfielder was both taking the positives and had highlighted areas to improve.

“There are things we can improve on still, there’s goals that you look back on and there’s things that you could have done to stop them. But we took our chances, to come here and score two is not easy. They’ve put on some really good performances here so overall something to be proud about.”