Emi Buendia and Ollie Watkins struck the goals for Villa at St James' Park.
Howe said: "I think when you lose a game like we did today, there’s a valid argument for everything. Everyone wants to change something.
"We have the players that we have, and we have to find a solution with those players. There’s no point me thinking we need another type of player at this moment because it’s not going to happen.
"The next chance we’ll really have to change the squad will be the summer. It’s about getting the best out of the players we have. I don’t think we played badly, but certainly around the goal, we could have done better of course. We still created chances that, on another day, I think we score, but it wasn’t to be."
Indeed, Howe was refusing to seek excuses for the setback.
"We had enough time to recover from our last game. It is a season where we are constantly mentally challenged in respect of playing and recovering. Villa had a very similar schedule to us and just executed the final bit better than us.
"They have played very well today and as the away team are probably pleased with how they have conducted the game.
"Their main threat was long shots and they scored one. That changes the whole game. It was blustery and windy, we can't use that as an excuse, we are just disappointed with a lot of our final actions because I thought generally we were okay in the game."