Steven Gerrard fires stark warning to Aston Villa squad over Premier League table

A frustrated Steven Gerrard has warned Aston Villa's squad they will plummet down the Premier League league table "pretty quickly" if they repeat their performance against Newcastle United.

Newcastle took advantage of a below-par performance by Villa to seal a vital 1-0 win in their fight for survival as Kieran Trippier's first-half goal secured all three points.

In what was a limp display by Gerrard's side, a frustrating afternoon was summed up when Ollie Watkins saw a goal wiped out for offside after a lengthy VAR check.

Gerrard did not hold back in his assessment of his side's performance and told Villa's website that they can ill-afford more performances like it in the remainder of the campaign.

Gerrard said: "We were way off the level by far.

"We have to be careful we don't repeat that performance because we can be dragged down this league and dragged down pretty quickly.

"There needs to be a drastic improvement, individually and collectively. We got what we deserved.

"Everything was missing. Everything we'd worked really hard for. All the positives that we've shown, the steps forward that we've taken - we certainly took steps back.

"It's a frustrating day - I can't think of many positives. I thought our two centre-halves held us together and Phil [Coutinho] did everything he could to get us back in the game.

"The VAR decision took three or four minutes and there were a lot of stop-starts during the game - that was frustrating. But we didn't start the game anywhere near our level - the first 45 minutes were poor.

"We improved slightly after the break but still it was nowhere near good enough. I have to take responsibility for that, there's a lot of work to do and we need to start that tomorrow [Monday].

"I need