Martin O'Neill pulled no punches after seeing his side lose to Wigan, insisting: "We simply weren't good enough."
O'Neill accepted Villa were second best all afternoon as goals from Hugo Rodallega and Jason Koumas consigned his claret and blue troops to an opening day defeat.
He said: "I am disappointed more than frustrated. You can be frustrated if you feel you deserved something out of the game. But we didn't. After an initial 15 minutes, we were second best all afternoon.
"You can analyse everything but at the end of the day, we looked tired, which was a bit of surprise considering we had a good pre-season.
"But I'm not going to make excuses. We were beaten today. We should have been ready to go. It was very disappointing indeed.
"We were loose everywhere - we weren't good enough.
"The fans will be disappointed with the performance. People have mentioned the absence of Gareth Barry and Martin Laursen. This is a new team - we have to be ready for that.
"We were good enough last season to overcome a lot of hurdles on our way to finishing sixth and that's what we intend to do again."
The Villa boss also revealed he was not surprised by Wigan's impressive performance.
"They didn't surprise me at all. They have performed very well in all the pre-season games I have seen them play.
"They hit the post with one of their attacks and they gained great confidence from that. We lost composure and they scored a wonder goal. Even at half-time I thought we would get back into it but we just weren't there today."
MON Wigan Reaction
What the hell does he mean its a new side besides Delph & Beye who is new? Delph is going to be a good player I am sure of that but to expect him to come in straight away and perform on the premier league stage is expecting too much.
Martin mentioned in a recent interview that the team had lost its heart without Barry and Laursen and he is right. Now just bloody do something about it!