(Football news) Goals from Rodri (4), Ilkay Gundogan (39) and a Riyad Mahrez penalty (45+1) helped Manchester City secure a 3-1 victory over Aston Villa after a turbulent week which saw them hit with 101 charges of alleged rule-breaking from the Premier League. While the result is certainly a good one for City, Erling Haaland was forced off at half-time due to an apparent thigh injury and is now a doubt for City’s match against Arsenal.
Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins managed to score a consolation goal in the 61st minute, showing a much improved performance in the second half after being utterly dominated in the first 45 minutes. With Arsenal drawing 1-1 against Brentford, City have now closed the gap to three points (but have played a game more).
In team news, Pep Guardiola made some defensive changes with Ruben Dias, Aymeric Laporte and Kyle Walker in a Man City back three while Aston Villa made one enforced change, with Calum Chambers replacing the injured Tyrone Mings. City will now take on Arsenal in the next match, knowing that a victory will propel them at the top of the table (on goal difference) But Haaland’s injury will be a big concern for the reigning champions.
Speaking after the match, Man City boss Pep Guardiola said “We played a really good game. We played better in the second half. I had the feeling we were going to score more but after we conceded always at 3-1 in the Premier League it’s open, but in general we played a good game. He (Haaland) had a big knock, he was comfortable and we didn’t want to take a risk. We will see and assess in the next few days. If he’s not ready [for Arsenal], we’ll play another one. Hopefully he is ready like everyone – we will see in the next few days.
“His presence is really good, he just has to take a look a little bit more when we have pressure on the ball. When the opponent has a high line, we need to find him a bit more. That’s a process, we will do it in the future. Finally when they (Arsenal) drop we were there to reduce the distance as in the past when we could have put pressure on them we fail. When they dropped points, we fail – finally today we could do it.”
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery said “We were very competitive away [in our previous games] but today we knew before that it was a tough match and it was like that. The first half, we weren’t competitive. They were also clinical but the mistakes were ours today. Three goals we could normally avoid in other matches.
“In the second half we tried to be consistent on the pitch, tried to forget the result and to be competitive and I think we did that. But in the first half they were better than us. They won the match without mistakes. I can only say sorry to the supporters but we continue on our way. Our next match is our challenge, against Arsenal at home. We want to show our supporters a good performance.”
Also read: Benzema, Messi and Mbappe get nominated for the FIFA Best player award
