BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) -Aston Villa inflicted more misery on shell-shocked Manchester City on Saturday, defeating them 2-1 in the Premier League with goals from Colombian forward Jhon Duran and former City forward Morgan Rogers.
Villa rose above City into fifth place in the Premier League table, and the title holders dropped provisionally to sixth with their ninth loss in 12 games across all competitions.
While Pep Guardiola’s team could fall to as low as ninth by the end of the weekend and have just one victory to show from that 12-game stretch, the manager remains optimistic results will come.
“It can come, it can not come,” Guardiola told the BBC. “It depends on us. The solution is bring the players back (from injuries). We have just one central defender fit, that is difficult. We are going to try next game — another opportunity and we don’t think much further than that.”
In a rip-roaring start, Villa almost scored inside 20 seconds when Duran pounced on a poor ball by Josko Gvardiol but his shot was pushed away by a diving Stefan Ortega. Ortega made another fine save from the corner that followed, batting Pau Torres’ shot away off the crossbar.
The narrow miss was a sign of things to come. Duran, 21, got the home side on the score sheet in the 16th minute when Youri Tielemans sent a sumptuous through ball to Rogers, whose unselfish pass found Duran free to fire home.
It was a another statement for a permanent spot in the starting 11 by former Villa super-sub Duran, who started for the third successive league game, and has scored in all three. He also had a goal chalked off for offside on Saturday.
“We are in the process with the players (strikers Duran and Ollie Watkins), keeping their consistency of playing,” Villa manager Unai Emery told TNT. “Jhon Duran today played fantastic, Watkins is fantastic as well, very important for us. Of course you have to work with both strikers, sometimes they play together. I am very happy with them.”
Villa Park erupted again in the 65th minute when Rogers latched on to a pass from captain John McGinn and finished with a low hard shot, leaving Guardiola to shake his head in frustration.
“It’s like a beast, really,” Rogers told TNT Sports of City. “Because obviously they haven’t had the results and we knew they would come out firing and they wouldn’t want to win the game. We knew if we stuck to the game plan, and we showed our quality we would cause problems, and to a man, I thought we were outstanding.”
Phil Foden pulled one back for City in stoppage time with his first league goal of the season after a mistake by Villa’s Lucas Digne, but it was too little too late for the visitors.
Foden had City’s best chances, including one in the first half that tested Villa’s World Cup winning goalkeeper Emi Martinez after a one-two with Rico Lewis.
“We are disappointed, it’s not good enough,” City striker Erling Haaland told TNT. “It’s not good enough from me.”
(Reporting by Lori Ewing in Manchester; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Pritha Sarkar)
