Lambert refuses to make excuses for his side's defeat [Focus]
The hosts slumped to a 4-1 defeat to the Potters, despite going 1-0 up through Christian Benteke within four minutes.
After going 2-1 down, Villa lost key players Karim El Ahmadi and Andreas Weimann to injury within a minute of each other.
But Lambert was disappointed with his side's display and refused to make excuses for them.
Lambert said: "We were definitely second best. That wasn't good enough.
"We got off to a really good start, within five minutes things were looking okay - we lost a couple of lads to injury, Andy and Karim - but, we were still second best.
"We had a really good start and got a really good goal, but the goals we lost were really, really poor.
Villa failed to hold onto their lead after Benteke's early strike [GETTY]
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"We take nothing away from Stoke, they deserved to win the game.
"(The injuries) do disrupt you a little bit but I'm not going to use that as an excuse."
The Villains are to face Manchester United next weekend and Lambert is sure his side can put in a good performance following last week's 1-0 victory over Premier League leaders Chelsea.
He added: "We'll be really up for it. Like the Chelsea game, no one expects us to get anything.
"It's a great game to play. As a footballer you want to play these sort of games and it's up to us to try to get something from them."
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