Under-fire Pep Guardiola reacts as crisis deepens at Man City after Aston Villa loss

Crisis-hit Manchester City’s season goes from bad to worse following another defeat for under-fire Pep Guardiola.

City suffered a 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa in the Premier League lunchtime game, thanks to goals in each half from Jhon Duran and Morgan Rogers. Phil Foden scored late on for City but it wasn’t enough, it was City’s sixth defeat in their last eight league matches. Overall, it is now nine defeats in 12 games across all competitions, unknown territory for Guardiola and his City squad.

The defending champions, prior to the 3pm games, had dropped to sixth and are now nine points off Liverpool again and having played a further two more games than their rivals.

Guardiola - who made six changes - said: “If there is a moment that I cannot overthink, it is right now. [I] try to be simple, stick to my principles and give certainty to the team. Tell them they can do it and how they can give benefit for the team defensively and offensively. The starting line-up was good. It’s not an easy place to come and today we played much better than last season.

“We take the positives and reflect. When I see the players before, during and after and how they behave I feel pride. We have to find the balance to create more chances than we concede. We don’t have a defence for the results. They are not good. It’s about what I can do with my people to get the results back and continue.

“Hopefully the players will come back step by step then we can continue. Then let’s go. We will recover and try to see how many players can play against Everton and we will try to do it.”