Olof Mellberg has blasted Villa for the derby display at West Brom, insisting: "We all know that was just not good enough."

And, though TV replays suggested he should have been celebrating a two-goal haul at The Hawthorns, the Villa skipper refused to use the controversial first-half incident as an excuse.

Villa started strongly against newly-promoted Albion and had the lead inside four minutes as Mellberg powered home a header from Thomas Hitzlsperger's right-wing corner.

An identical set-piece 14 minutes later almost saw Villa double their lead, but referee Mark Halsey failed to spot that the ball had crossed the line before Paul Robinson cleared.

Mellberg said: "Apparently my header in the first-half was over the line, so that should have been a goal. At 2-0 up there, it might not have killed the game, but it certainly would have made it a lot easier for us.

"I couldn't see if it was over the line. It was a good corner and I hit it well, probably better than the first one. I tried to claim it, but I didn't see it from where I was. But the people standing closer to the line are saying it was over.

"But on the whole 90 minutes it wasn't good enough. We started the game well, but overall it wasn't good enough.

"We couldn't hold the ball up for long periods of time. We had to defend for basically the whole of the last 45 minutes. We couldn't keep the ball and give ourselves time to get the team up.

"We had our chances as well, but they had a lot of set-pieces and we knew they were going to be dangerous on that. They scored from one of them. I think it was probably a fair result in the end."

Just as they did a week earlier against Southampton, Villa started well at The Hawthorns, but Mellberg admits they need more staying power.

He concluded: "We seemed to start the game well. It was the same last week, we started really, really well and killed the game off. We were close to doing that at Albion as well, but we didn't.

"We've got to be more consistent. We've got to be good for 90 minutes - especially away from home.

"I think we were looking at three points before a game like this, so we weren't happy with the point. But at the end, you've got to say it was a fair result."