PL: Crystal Palace 1 - 2 Aston Villa
Steven Gerrard says his Villa side still have room for improvement after he secured his second win as manager with a 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
The former Liverpool captain was jubilant when Matt Targett put Villa ahead with a low drive through a crowd of bodies from Ashley Young's corner on 15 minutes.
As Palace tried to salvage something in the second half, John McGinn curled a beautiful shot into the top corner from the edge of the box to double the visitors' lead against the run of play.
Palace did eventually manage to score a late consolation through Marc Guehi. It was not enough to deny Villa.
All the reaction
Steven Gerrard spoke with BBC Match of the Day: "We can't get carried away. It has been a positive couple of weeks. The players have been fantastic in their application. We had to dig in at times today but we managed to get over the line which is nice."
One Villa fan told us: "It was another great win. We can start looking up the table now."
Palace's Joe Ward told his club website: "“It’s very disappointing to come away from what has been such a great start and such a great run as well today,” Ward said post-match. “You could say we weren’t quite at the races. Coming off the park I think you could say we were second best in many duels, and that reflected on the scoreline at the end of the game.
“We had to impose ourselves, which we didn’t do as much as we did in other games. Any time we got any momentum, they slowed down their play. They took their time and bought their fouls, which ended up really slowing the momentum, and stopping us building any momentum."
