Aston Villa duo banned as Steven Gerrard gives honest verdict

Good morning, Villans! Here are your latest Aston Villa headlines as attention turns towards Watford at home on Saturday.

Aston Villa were slow and sloppy throughout the 1-0 defeat to Newcastle United on Sunday, which left Steven Gerrard far from impressed with what he saw from his side.

Speaking after the game, the Villa boss stated: "A really bad day for us. I was surprised with the performance that we gave. There were no signs of that, certainly in the preparation.

"Look, collectively we need to improve. We've got a lot of work to do.

"We didn't deserve anything out of the game given the level of performance that we give. That's clear to me and some changes in the team need to happen as well."

Aston Villa duo Emi Martinez and Emi Buendia have been banned for two Argentina matches for "for not complying with the FIFA Return to Football International Match Protocol".

The incident refers to the pair travelling to Brazil for September's World Cup qualifier, with the match between the South American rivals abandoned after just 10 minutes by Brazilian health officials.

It was claimed that Argentina's UK-based players - Martinez, Buendia, Giovani Lo Celso and Christian Romero (both Spurs) - violated Brazilian Covid regulations.

Martinez, Lo Celso and Romero were all on the pitch back in September, while Buendia was sat in the stands before Brazil's health agency, Anvisa, halted play after just seven minutes.

You did not need to be a body language expert to determine what was going through Steven Gerrard's mind as Aston Villa toiled at Newcastle.

Pictures of him slumped in the dugout told us all that we needed to know about the struggle he was witnessing as Villa barely laid a glove on a team that is fighting for