Gerard Houllier refused to be too downhearted even after his Aston Villa team's Carling Cup hopes for another season had been ended by Birmingham City at the quarter-final stage.

Last year's beaten finalists lost 2-1 at St Andrew's but Houllier is convinced his team's fortunes are just about to change.

He said:"We are going through a rough period at the moment. When that happens you need to stick together, stay strong mentally and not have a 'blame others' culture.

"We now need to focus on the next game which is Liverpool and prepare for it. We need points and we need to keep playing well and hope at some stage there will be a click and we'll get the momentum of two or three wins because we deserve that.

"I won't hide it – it hurts after the Carling Cup defeat because I thought we were the better side. We played good football. I don't want to take anything away from Alex (McLeish) and his side. They won but I thought we deserved to win as much as they did.

"I was extremely disappointed both for the fans and for the players. I think we are improving, we are playing better, it's just at the moment the goals are not going into the back of the net. Also, we made a couple of mistakes which cost us.

"The content of the game was good. The quality of the performance was good. That's why the players are a bit stunned. We were on top of them at some stages but it was just a shame we couldn't score the second goal because I thought that would be the end of it.

"I was expecting extra-time and I thought physically we would find the opening. In football you need to score goals – we are improving and playing better football but we also need to get results.

"To get results we need at some stages in the game not to give the ball away cheaply and not make mistakes – which we will eradicate. But we also need more of a cutting edge and to be more clinical at times."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email