O'Neil said: "Disappointed with the result but that's about all I'm disappointed with. Felt the lads gave everything. We know how good a side they are. More possession, more shots, higher expected goals, but that doesn't help us much. Proud of the players to come here. There was no giving up or excuses made and it wasn't quite enough but we have to accept that.
"We were the better team by a mile for the first part but then somehow we end up being 1-0 down from that spell. You can tell Aston Villa fans were slightly surprised and going 1-0 then relaxes the place. In terms of what we asked the boys to give in terms of fighting and creating opportunities, it was a good performance than on another day, could have led to some points.
"Some really tired lads. Rayan Ait-Nouri did two lots of 90 minutes and didn't look himself today. We registered 19 players out of the possible 25. We had 11 fit senior players to work with but that performance there, I will sign up to any time. We have a few issues at the moment but we're on 41 points which is a massive achievement. We will keep pushing to get as many (points) as we can and get as high up the table as we can."