Everton midfielder Leon Osman has admitted he is wary of an Aston Villa backlash this weekend.
Everton ace insists Toffees need to improve too though
Everton midfielder Leon Osman has admitted he is wary of an Aston Villa backlash this weekend.
Villa beat West Ham 3-0 on the opening day but suffered a 6-0 defeat at Newcastle last week and are still coming to terms with the departures of manager Martin O'Neill and star player James Milner.
Osman believes that Sunday's setback will serve as even greater motivation for Kevin MacDonald's men when the two sides meet at Villa Park on Sunday.
But he added that the Toffees will also be determined to claim victory after making an uninspiring start to the season, picking up just one point from their opening two league games.
"That result they had at the weekend probably makes it more difficult for us," he said.
Wounded
"They will be a bit wounded and will want to come out and show it was a one-off.
"We are going in there confident and hopefully we can come away with the right result.
"It has not been the perfect start so the sooner we put that right the better."
Everton lost 1-0 at Blackburn and were held 1-1 by Wolves last weekend but were lifted for Sunday's trip to Birmingham by a morale-boosting Carling Cup win during the week.
The Toffees enjoyed a 5-1 victory at Huddersfield, with Marouane Fellaini, Jack Rodwell, new signing Jermaine Beckford, Louis Saha and Osman all getting on the scoresheet.
Frustrating
"Any team just wants to get that first win under their belts," said Osman, who stood in as captain. "We've done that now so we can look onwards and push on.
"The Blackburn and Wolves results were frustrating but the season is still young - we are not losing our heads at the minute.
"It is not the perfect start we wanted but we have got a lot of games to put that right in."
