Martin O'Neill was offering no excuses this morning as the post-mortem into last night's disappointing 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough continued.

The Villa boss refused to chalk the poor display off as merely a 'bad night at the office' and vowed to quickly put things right.

In just over 18 months since he succeeded David O'Leary in the Villa hotseat O'Neill has rarely had cause to question his side's desire and application.

But reflecting on last night's display, he told www.avfc.co.uk: "Another disappointing aspect last night was that we didn't show phenomenal desire. That's not something I've levelled at the players on too many occasions.

"I just thought we were second for far too long tonight and that was particularly disappointing. Now it's my job to do something about it.

"The players have responded before and now they have to do it again. But last night was the opportunity to put pressure on Everton and Liverpool.

"Coming on the back of a brilliant effort at the Emirates Stadium, we should have been ready and it was up to us.

"The crowd tried to get us going once or twice, but it was really up to us to provide the spark and we didn't do that."

He continued: "You can talk all you want about us not having the game on Saturday and having to wait around - I thought we were ready for the game, but as it turned out, we didn't do enough to merit a win.

"I'm not just going to put this down to a 'bad night at the office'. While it can be a mistake to over-analyse things, I know that we have to do better than that.

"It would be too easy just to brush this to one side - we have to play better. Last night was an opportunity for us, which we didn't take.

"Gareth showed some character from the penalty spot, considering he missed a couple of weeks ago at Reading. I was delighted to have got the goal and was hoping that would be the spur for us to go on and get a victory.

"That didn't materialise and it was a case of more of the same. Throughout the game and particularly in the first-half we didn't create enough.

"You can have spells of 10 or 15 minutes like that in any game, but we just never got going and that was our problem.

"When we did have possession we gave it away too easily and I don't think you can afford to do that in this league."