Morgan Rogers says he and his Aston Villa teammates must dust themselves down after a largely impressive performance in defeat to Arsenal.
Ollie Watkins dragged the ball wide from close range after Leon Bailey robbed the ball off Gabriel in the final third, before the striker then saw his header from close range miraculously saved by David Raya early in the second period. Leandro Trossard came off the bench to punish Villa as he opened the scoring in the 67th minute, before Thomas Partey doubled Arsenal's lead.
"Outside both boxes we had the better of it through the majority of the game, I felt we were really good, I felt we competed," Rogers said on Sky Sports. "Obviously we know they are a good team so we had to give up some areas, but we contained them really well.
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"We watched them [Arsenal], analysed them and tried to come up with a game plan to stop their threats. We had to wait and pounce and capitalise when we could and I think we did that. We caught them out, surprised them.
"That's what football is about, it's chess, it's two top managers trying to combat each other and that's what it was. Unfortunately we didn't get that end bit."
Asked about Watkins and his missed chances, Rogers said "He's our talisman, we rely on him, we know he'll score them. We're not going to question that. It's one of those things, it happens. We gave a good account of ourselves. It's one of those games we have to dust ourselves down and move on."
The only thing missing from Rogers' first two performances of the season have been goals. He played an instrumental role in the win at West Ham last weekend, before impressing again against the Gunners tonight.
"I'm getting better and better, more comfortable within the team, tying to impress, trying to shine, I would prefer it to be in a winning way," he added. "I want to go better, score goals, create and win games for the team."
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