Here's The Athletic’s view of the game from a City/tactical perspective. In summary - Pep got it wrong.
ASTON VILLA 1 MANCHESTER CITY 0 – GUARDIOLA’S GRAVEYARD STRIKES AGAIN TO DENT TITLE HOPES
Manchester City’s momentum has been stalled.
A run of three consecutive Premier League wins had thrust Pep Guardiola’s side back into the thick of the title race but a limp 1-0 defeat at a stadium which is becoming City’s graveyard checked that optimism.
Matty Cash’s first-half goal proved enough as City fell six points behind leaders Arsenal.
We analyse how it happened.
WHY DO CITY STRUGGLE AT VILLA SO MUCH?
For the third year running, Manchester City struggled to cope with Villa and left this part of the west midlands with a deserved defeat.
After nine games unbeaten in all competitions, City were looking to equal the best sequence they managed last season. Guardiola felt that his new-look team have been improving every game since the 2-1 defeat to Brighton in August.
They had looked more balanced as a team and had started to rediscover their ability to dominate long periods, if not yet for 90 minutes. But there is still a fragility that undermines them compared to their title rivals Arsenal.
The reason Guardiola said on Friday that he doesn’t believe Mikel Arteta’s side will drop many points until the end of the season is that they look impenetrable in most games.
City, even with Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and John Stones all back, still endure periods in which the opposition are given encouragement to be aggressive in attack.
Even against Everton last weekend, City could have been two goals down at the break because they were unable to control their counter attacks.
City knocked after the break with Villa content to soak up pressure but the home side did their damage in the first half as Villa broke at them with pace time after time. Their victory could have been even more emphatic had they taken those opportunities.
HOW DID VILLA KEEP HAALAND QUIET?
Finally, after a run of 12 games for club and country, Erling Haaland did not make it onto the score sheet.
In the first half, Haaland had more touches inside his own penalty area than he did the Villa box — just one. It told the story of the game and how little he was involved but Villa will have known that it only takes a single touch for him to change a game.
We have seen him use his invisibility to his benefit time after time. It nearly proved the case shortly after Villa’s opener when Bernardo Silva played him clear through but he opened his body too much and telegraphed the finish, which meant Emi Martinez was able to easily hold on to the shot.
Haaland had a late effort ruled out for an offside in the build-up but his only other sight of goal came in the 70th minute when Phil Foden stood up a cross and he rose above Pau Torres. He has scored similar goals this season against Monaco and Everton, generating power despite the ball moving away from goal, but his header was straight at Martinez.
He ended the day with only four touches in the Villa area and played just seven passes in the entire 90 minutes, ranking him 23rd among players who featured in the game.
Villa did not employ quite as high a line as usual but City did not test the offside trap too often. Both Savinho and Oscar Bobb continually came towards the ball and neither Foden nor Silva ran behind Haaland.
Guardiola spoke last week about the need for others to find their shooting boots with Haaland responsible for 11 of City’s 17 goals so far. Not only did the supporting cast fail to find the net, they failed to create much the entire game.
WHY DID GUARDIOLA’S SELECTION BACKFIRE IN THE FIRST HALF?
Guardiola chose to start four small, technical players behind Erling Haaland, and a box-to-box midfielder at No 6. It was a team selection that saw Villa dominate City physically in the first half.
City tried to press high but Villa were able to play intricate combinations to break through and found themselves running at the City back four far too often. When loose balls broke City were usually second to them.
It was the same fundamental issue that saw City unable to compete last year in the 2-1 defeat, which was one of the lowest points of their decline last season.
Savinho, Foden, Silva and Bobb is a lightweight four that doesn’t possess any running power.
Stones continued his hybrid role that worked so well against Villarreal in midweek but even his presence, alongside Tijjani Reijnders, was not enough to counteract Villa’s physicality.
In the modern Premier League it is difficult to compete when players are inferior athletically one v one.
It was a reality City faced up to last season with an ageing squad but they had the profile of player on the bench — as the triple sub of Nico O’Reilly, Nico Gonzalez and Jeremy Doku showed — to ensure they could at least try and change the dynamic of the match after half-time.
WHAT DID GUARDIOLA SAY?
The Manchester City manager pinpointed his team’s first-half performance as being key to defeat at Villa Park but insisted his players would learn from the experience.
“In the first half the pressing wasn’t good, in the second half it was better,” he told Sky Sports. “We were not aggressive enough.
“We had the chances to score, we couldn’t do it. But we will improve. I am satisfied. We played really good in the Premier League mainly and we’re getting better. We will learn from that. It’s a long journey, we will try to be close at the end.”
