Gerrard was sacked when the club were close to the relegation zone, with Unai Emery soon turning the team into European contenders.
Reflecting on his time at Villa, Gerrard told The Telegraph: "I think when top footballers are not performing at their level I am not going to pull any punches. We had players who weren't giving what I felt they should have been giving at the time and that's my responsibility.
"Villa is a fantastic club. It was an incredible opportunity at the time and I have nothing bad to say. The owners gave me a fantastic chance.
The initial period, our form was top eight in the Premier League and obviously the opinion of me now from a lot of people will be that I failed, if you like, but I know there was a period there where we got an awful lot of things right. We had the team doing okay."