Steven Gerrard vowed to ‘never ever quit’ in his last interview as before he was sacked following the loss at Fulham on Thursday night.
Villa were soundly defeated 3-0 at Craven Cottage, courtesy of goals from Harrison Reed, Aleksandar Mitrovic and an own goal from Tyrone Mings, in a game where everything that could go wrong, went wrong for the visitors.
After going into the break a goal down, Douglas Luiz was sent-off for a headbutt on Mitrovic, before Matty Cash conceded a penalty for Fulham’s second, with Ming’s own goal the unfortunate cherry on top.
Throughout the second-half, away fans did not conceal their anger toward Gerrard, chanting: ‘We want Gerrard out,’ and ‘Steven Gerrard get out of our club.’
Gerrard had been unable to shake off the poor form Villa suffered from at the end of last season, with the Villans recording just nine points from the opening 11 games of this campaign.
As it stands, they are 17th in the table, and are out of the relegation zone only by virtue of having score more goals than local rivals Wolves.
The Liverpool legend had long been favourite to be the next Premier League manager to get the sack and in his post-match interview he initially appeared a crestfallen man.
‘If you look at how we performed at the weekend [against Chelsea] and the team I picked tonight, I really wanted us to build on the weekend [but we] got the opposite,’ he told Amazon.
‘The performance was nowhere near good enough, the first half shocked me considering what I watched at the weekend.
‘We were second best for the majority of the first half. We were lucky to still be in the game at half-time, that was down to our keeper [Emiliano Martinez] who made some outstanding saves.
‘I got in amongst the players at half-time looking for that reaction and then when you go down to 10-men it’s an even bigger mountain to climb. I certainly won’t disrespect any of my players but we just didn’t turn up tonight.’
Asked about the Villa fans’ reaction, Gerrard said that he understood their frustrations but vowed never to give up, though he acknowledged his time at Villa Park may be over very soon – and is it turned out, he was gone in the next hour.
‘It was a tough night for me personally, but I’m a man I accept it, I understand it, I share their frustrations and pain and I’m someone who’s honest,’ he added.
‘I know they’re certainly not enjoying it at the moment. I’m certainly not. You know and I know I’m in a very different position right now.
‘I’m a fighter, I’ll never ever quit anything certainly when it comes down to football or anything in life, so we’ll see what happens moving forward.’
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