David O'Leary is praying for a quick end to the impending
Aston Villa takeover to help stave off his side's worrying slide towards the threat of relegation.
After witnessing Villa's latest defensive shambles against Manchester City at Eastlands, O'Leary was determined not to use all the distracting takeover talk as an excuse.
But he is desperately in need of the extra spending power in the January transfer window that Villa's new would-be owners hope to invest.
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He said: "It's a very unsettling time with all the rumours, as people can look for excuses on the back of it very easily. All the time I've been here there's been rumours, which have become constant over the past few weeks.
"The first I knew about it was when I woke up to read about it on Sunday.But you just hope something either happens or it doesn't so you can concentrate on the football side of things, as our bigger problem is on the pitch."
On last night's performance O'Leary was unequivocal.
"We defended poorly again, which is what we've been doing all season," O'Leary said. "It's no coincidence we're where we are. And for us to pull away we've got to start defending better than that.
"From day one this season, we've been giving away too many easy goals and making life hard for ourselves. That's the reason why we're down there. We're not good enough to give sides goals like that. It is hard to take, particularly when I know what would put it right."
Of Darius Vassell's double strike he said: "Sod's law. Peter Crouch scored against us last year too. But we didn't sell Darius because he's a bad player. We saved a lot of money on his wages and got £2 million for him."
