Whichever way Martin O'Neill wanted to look at it, he could not find much to delight him. Aston Villa might have secured a point from a goalless draw at home to Liverpool but he could see the match for what it was: drab.
The Villa performance was scarcely any better and now — not that he would need reminding — his team have only won two of their past 19 matches.
Villa's best hope of victory came when, at the end of the first half, Stiliyan Petrov appeared to be fouled by Steve Finnan, but no penalty was forthcoming.
But O'Neill was largely unimpressed.
"We did not play well and it turned out to be more of a chess game than a highly entertaining match," O'Neill said. "We were the home side and the onus was on us to attack better than we did. We were lacking a bit of confidence.
"The ironic thing is we have played much better and got nothing from games. But it is our job to do better than that at home in terms of our performance.
"I suppose a draw against Liverpool has to be seen as a useful point, but we did not play particularly well and it eventually turned out to be a nothing game. We need a few more points on the board and confidence is not at its strongest. We have to fight through this.
"We had the big crowd in here and I wanted us to play better. It did not materialise and that was really disappointing."
Of the incident in the Liverpool penalty area involving Petrov, O'Neill remains convinced that Villa should have gained a penalty. The view from Liverpool was inevitably different.
"I’ve seen it back and it definitely looked a penalty to me," O'Neill said.
