Manchester City crisis deepens after Premier League defeat at Aston Villa

Pep Guardiola's side lose at Villa Park to make it just one win in 12 games for defending champions

Aston Villa's Morgan Rogers celebrates with teammates after scoring their second goal against Manchester City in the 2-1 Premier League win at Villa Park on Saturday, December 21, 2024. AFP

Aston Villa's Morgan Rogers scores their second goal. PA

Manchester City's Phil Foden, Erling Haaland and Pep Guardiola after the match. PA

Phil Foden of Manchester City scores his team's first goal under pressure from Ezri Konsa of Aston Villa. Getty Images

Aston Villa's Jhon Duran celebrates with teammates after scoring their first goal. PA

Aston Villa's Jhon Duran scores their first goal past Manchester City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega. Reuters

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola reacts on the touchline. Getty Images

Aston Villa keeper Emiliano Martinez clashes with Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland of Manchester City. Getty Images

Manchester City's Stefan Ortega saves from Aston Villa's Pau Torres. Action Images

Goals from Jhon Duran and Morgan Rogers gave Aston Villa a deserved 2-1 victory at Villa Park on Saturday to heap more misery on Manchester City.

The defeat means it is now one just win in 12 games for Pep Guardiola's defending champions, who grabbed a late consolation goal from Phil Foden.

The loss was City's sixth in the Premier League this season and saw them slip to sixth place in the table, nine points behind leaders Liverpool, with Unai Emery's Villa going above them into fifth spot.

Guardiola made six changes from the derby defeat against Manchester United last week but the reshuffle made no difference to the result.

Villa themselves were coming off a poor run that had seen them win just three of their past 11 games in the Premier League.

But they flew out of the blocks in a thrilling start to the game, almost going ahead after just 20 seconds as Duran forced a sharp save from City keeper Stefan Ortega after a poor pass from defender Josko Gvardiol.

Pau Torres then had a great headed chance from a corner, which produced another fine reflex save from Ortega.

Gvardiol was guilty of sloppiness once again as John McGinn nicked the ball from him to set up Duran, with Ortega pulling off another good stop.

Villa finally went ahead in the 17th minute when a superb Youri Tielemans pass found Rogers, who unselfishly teed up Jhon Duran to prod the ball past Ortega.

The 21-year-old Duran was Villa’s super-sub but he now has six goals in six starts in all competitions this season. This was a fourth strike in four successive games for the Colombian.

Five minutes after the break, Duran thought he had put Villa two-nil up when he was set free by another lovely Tielemans pass before lashing the ball into the net before being flagged narrowly offside.

Just before the hour, Rogers shaved the outside of the City post after an intricate passing move involving Lucas Digne and Duran at the edge of the box.

But Rogers made amends for that miss with a smart finish after a great surge from midfield before being set up by a clever slipped pass from Tielemans.

Substitute Ollie Watkins had a good chance to make it 3-0 as the City defence was once again sliced open by a brilliant pass from Rogers but the England striker fired straight at Ortega.

Foden gave City some hope with a poacher's goal in stoppage time after a mistake by Digne but it wasn't enough to rescue his side from yet another damaging defeat.

After the game, Villa goalscorer Rogers told TNT Sports: “We knew it was going to be difficult. We knew they were going to come firing, they wanted to win the game and we knew we had to be at it.

“Results haven't gone our way in the last few weeks so we knew we needed a reaction, the same way as they did and we knew if we stuck to the game plan and showed our quality, we'd cause them problems and we did that.

"To a man, I thought we were outstanding so we deserved the win."

City striker Erling Haaland said: “Of course, we are disappointed, it's not good enough. It's not good enough from me.

“We have to continue. First I'm looking at myself, I haven't been doing things good enough, I haven't been scoring my chances. I have to do better, I haven't been good enough.

“[Villa have] good players, it's difficult to come here but we're Man City we should be out there. We have to continue, we have to believe and we have to keep working hard.

“We know how important confidence is and you can see that it affects every human being. That is how it is, we have to continue and stay positive even though it is difficult.”

On Guardiola, he said: “He won the Premier League six times in seven years, so we will never forget that. He will find the solutions. He has been doing that every single year. We still believe in him, we have to work harder than ever right now.”

Guardiola said: “We make a really good first half, second half we dropped. We changed our pressing for the reason John [Stones] could not continue. Congratulations Aston Villa and keep going.”