Lambert on....West Ham United

Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert looks for the positives after his side's 1-0 defeat this afternoon at the Boleyn. As ever we bring you the post match press conference in full....

Paul: On the balance of the 90 minutes was that a fair result or do you feel hard done by?

Well we started the game really well. I thought that for 30 minutes or so we were excellent. We controlled the ballbut we didn’t score. You can’ fault the lads’ effort. He effort was there but there wasn’t much in the game.

The actual goal: there was a lot of confusion between the linesman and the ref. Your thoughts?

I wasn’t sure at the time but I’ve seen the tape and the ball came off one or other of the lads so the ref’s called it right. The ref I can’t fault. We made mistakes all over but there were a lot of positives to take. You pick yourself up and start again.

You looked very bright to start off with. Is the challenge now to convert that extra possession into chances?

Yeah – you summed that up brilliantly! You’d be better off sitting up here! (Laughter)

You have Darren Bent who everyone knows is a goalscorer but he only got a few touches today...

Yes it was difficult today. Whether the heat contributed to that..it probably did. Darren will score that’s for sure. He’s a goal threat – we just have to get the service to him.

Paul how far off are you squad-wise? Do you need more bodies?

I’m not so sure. I was asked that yesterday If something comes up and it’s worth our doing then we’ll look at it. If we get one or two injuries back – losing Gabby (Agbonlahor) has been a bit of a blow for us. He’s a big player. He was playing very well in pre-season. We’re still talking two or three weeks for him.

As a former manager did you wince at the Norwich result?

No – what was it?

5-0...

For?...

Fulham.

Fulham???? Listen I can’t speak highly enough of Norwich. Good luck to Chris and the lads – there’s a long way to go. It’s one game for everybody and it’s a long old season.

Mark Hughes is probably saying the same thing - QPR lost 5-0 at home.

There’s been some strange results about – Liverpool got beat 3-0 so I heard.

Sam just said that, although it’s just one game it’s important to get a good start. Do you feel as if you are going to need some wins just around the corner?

I think you get a bedding-in time of about three and a half milliseconds! I never think of anything other than trying to win. Ever. That’s just me as a person. Last season at Norwich – you get a point away at Wigan then you get beat the next game and think ‘where’s the next point coming from?' I think the crowd were good today – they came a long way to watch us but we need them to be there when things are not going right for us.

Stephen Ireland looked as if he wanted the ball, he looked energetic and was always looking for angles. Is he a key part of what you’re trying to do?

It’s unfair to single out any player – it’s as a team we have to gel. I also thought Ron Vlaar was excellent, Karim (El Ahmadi) had a lot of the ball and did fine. Matt Lowton has just come out of League One he was excellent as well. We just need to pull as a team. If we can do that we’ll be fine.

Ron Vlaar didn’t even know he was bleeding when he came off for treatment.

He’s a big lad and a top pro. He was excellent.

Do you think that the team will grow together?

We have to. We have to grow together. We have to win together and to lose together. There’s no blame culture. I’m not one for a blame culture.

Thanks.