Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard believes his side needed more ruthlessness against Manchester United.

The Birmingham-based club put in a very good display at Old Trafford, dominating the ball for long periods and creating more meaningful chances than the home side.

However, they could not finish off their best opportunities, and lost the game 1-0 to an early Scott McTominay header.

Post-game, Gerrard told BBC Sport: "Very tough. We are out of the FA Cup and coming into this job I saw this competition as an opportunity to have a good run in it.

"The lads gave a lot in terms of performance but we need to learn and close the gap from a performance that was nearly good enough. We dominated for large parts but we were not ruthless enough.

"I've seen enough tonight in terms of the performance to know that I can get to where I want to get to but we need to learn and learn quickly. We need to be more ruthless moving forward, defending crosses we need to be tighter.

"We cannot be having people with free headers in our six yard box. It is quite clear what we need to iron out and we will do it in the short term."