From looking at social media and speaking to fans, many went to Villa Park on Sunday afternoon quietly confident of picking up a positive result. But from the get go, it couldn’t have gone much worse for Andoni Iraola’s side. Here are five things we learned from a very disappointing afternoon:

1. The international break comes at a good time

There are times when the international break feels like it couldn’t have come at a worse moment. This is certainly not one of them. After a brilliant unbeaten run, it’s now back-to-back defeats against Manchester City and Villa. Of course, these are extremely tough games, and in a way it is nice to have got them done for the season, but aspects of the performances have been somewhat concerning. With a strong core of the team remaining on the South Coast during the international break, it should come at a good time to iron out issues that have been prevalent in the last couple of weeks, especially defensively.

2. AFCB’s right backs are cursed at Villa Park

The tone for the game was realistically set when Adam Smith and Tyler Adams clashed heads in the third minute, meaning Smith had to come off after a lengthly delay. That was not ideal in itself, especially for Smith who was making his first appearance since coming off against Spurs in August. Unfortunately, his replacement Alex Jimenez had an afternoon to forget. Jimenez was booked, gave away a needless free kick for Villa’s opener, gave the ball away cheaply on a couple of occasions and was targeted defensively. Him getting replaced at half time brought back eerily similar vibes to when Julian Araujo was replaced after just 30 minutes at Villa Park last season due to poor performance. Araujo never really bounced back from that – hopefully Jimenez can, and hopefully Smith’s head injury isn’t too bad. Lewis Cook put in a solid performance in the second half, in a role he deputised in very well last season.

3. The game hinged on that penalty

The first half performance was not the AFC Bournemouth we know and love. Players were second to everything, lacking the usual sharpness and intensity that is required if you are to come away from Villa Park with anything. The halftime scoreline was justified, but the players came out fighting in the second half. The ball was moving quicker, Emi Martinez was forced into a fantastic save from a deflected Alex Scott strike and Evanilson hit the post with a header from a corner. After a very similar routine, Morgan Rogers was penalised for handball after the ball struck his outstretched arm from close range. Had Antoine Semenyo converted that penalty, it would almost certainly have been a very different afternoon. All momentum would have been with Iraola’s side and you would have backed them to continue building that pressure, similar to how they did at Anfield earlier this season (even if they didn’t pick up a result there). Semenyo’s effort was not even that bad – it was simply a brilliant bit of goalkeeping by Martinez to keep his penalty out. After that, you just knew it was going to be one of those days, and that seemed to translate to the players too, conceding two soft goals from corners thereafter.

4. Veljko deserves credit despite scoreline

It’s not often you lose 4-0 and yet your best player on the day is a centre back, but I thought that was the case regarding Veljko Milosavljevic yesterday. The young defender didn’t shy away from the battle despite the scoreline, and managed to keep Ollie Watkins quiet. That doesn’t particularly matter when Villa score four anyway, but it was encouraging again to see ‘Milo’ look up to the standard. He filled up the defensive stat line with 14 defensive contributions (tackles, blocks, clearances etc.), whilst winning 4/6 ground duels and 1/2 aerial duels. The battle between him and Diakite for the centre back spot next to Senesi remains an intriguing one.

5. Evanilson needs a goal… desperately.

In the first half, with the score at 1-0, Marcos Senesi found Evanilson on one of his many off the ball runs. Eva had beaten the offside trap, and had he convincingly taken the ball down, would have been through one on one. But that didn’t happen, the ball bouncing away from him and through to Emi Martinez. And honestly, it never felt like he was going to score from that position, which is worrying for a striker. He hit the post with a header in the second half and won yet another penalty. His work off the ball can not be questioned, and for me he offers more to the team on and off the ball than Junior Kroupi does. But you can’t ignore the fact that Kroupi has vastly outscored the Brazilian despite playing many less minutes – we have always waxed lyrical about how important Evanilson is to the team with what he brings other than goals, but you want your £40M man to start scoring eventually. He has just one PL goal this season, a deflected strike at Spurs, and although he has been contributing penalty wins and red cards against (as he always does), he looks low on confidence in front of goal, and needs to find something from somewhere. Still though, it could be argued that other than that one Senesi ball and the corner, there was yet again very little created for him. Evanilson is a man you feed for goals inside the box – he’s very unlikely to score a goal like Kroupi did against Nottingham Forest. His teammates need to step up and give him more to work with.

AFCB now sit in 9th in a very congested Premier League, but will be hoping to get back to winning ways at home to West Ham after the international break. Before then, we all hope to see Alex Scott become just the third AFC Bournemouth player to represent the senior England squad. Good luck to him.