Saturday 20 September 2014 18:15, UK
Paul Lambert was left to rue a virus which swept through the Aston Villa camp ahead of the 3-0 home defeat by Arsenal.
Villa headed into the game unbeaten in their opening four games and victory over Arsenal would have sent Lambert’s side to the top of the Premier League table.
However, several players were struggling with illness as Ashley Westwood pulled out during the warm-up and Andreas Weimann had to be replaced at half-time.
“It’s not making excuses, it’s there,” Lambert told Sky Sports regarding the virus.
“We lost Nathan [Baker] this morning, we lost Darren [Bent] this morning, Westy during the warm-up, Andi Weimann during the game, Fabian [Delph] had it all week, Brad Guzan had it all week.
“It’s been really tough and to play Arsenal you’ve got to have everybody firing on all cylinders, so it was a game too much for us.
“All credit to the lads. I knew they were going to run empty pretty quickly and I can’t fault them for that. The virus certainly hampered us.
“Fabian had a great shot and Ciaran [Clark] had a header saved and that might have given you something to hang on to but Arsenal are a really good side and scored three goals in a few minutes.”
Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck and Aly Cissokho’s own goal put Arsenal in control in the space of four first-half minutes, and Lambert said: “It’s what can happen when you play a top-quality side.
“You look at their bench and the lads coming off the bench, so I can’t be too hard on our lads.
“We knew the circumstances coming into this game and we knew the virus was going to affect us.
“We will have to try and shut the place down for a couple of days. It’s not just the players, some of the staff have got it as well. It’s hampering everybody so maybe the best thing is to shut it down for a bit.”
