Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard joked the abuse he got off Manchester United supporters in Monday’s FA Cup defeat was like ‘water off a duck’s back.’
The Liverpool legend was back at Old Trafford with his team as they suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat courtesy of Scott McTominay’s first-half strike.
Given his allegiances to Liverpool, Gerrard came in for plenty of abuse from the United supporters throughout the game as they booed and jeered his every movement on the touchline.
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But the Villa head coach poked fun at the ‘relatively quiet’ levels of noise he heard from the home fans.
‘Relatively quiet! I have been to noisier stadiums than this,’ he said. ‘It was a good cup tie, a good atmosphere but in terms of what I got, water off a duck’s back.’
Aston Villa dominated for large periods of the clash and were even unlucky not to come away with a win eventually.
One major talking point saw Danny Ings’ second-half goal disallowed after a lengthy VAR check deemed Jacob Ramsey had fouled Cavani in the build up to the strike.
‘How long have you got?’ Gerrard replied when asked for his thoughts on the VAR incident. ‘The officials took three and a half minutes to settle that one. They have looked at two or three things in it.
‘When VAR is there and they make a decision you have to accept it. ‘There is nothing you can do to change it. The easy way out is to blame luck and the officials, we won’t do that.’
While Villa missed out on a fourth round game with Middlesbrough in the next round, they will get the opportunity to exact revenge on the Red devils when they meet again in the Premier League on Saturday.
‘It is quite unique to play a team in the space of five or six days. The players have an opportunity to flip the mood, flip the feeling,’ Gerrard added.
‘I am sure they are frustrated. They played quite well and dominated large arts but with no rewards for the performance so they have an opportunity at Villa Park to straighten that out.
‘I am not disappointed in the performance tonight just disappointed we didn’t take our chances and conceded a sloppy goal.’
