Pep Guardiola gave an honest assessment of Manchester City’s 1-0 Premier League defeat to Aston Villa on Wednesday night, stressing: “The better team won.”
City lost 1-0 to the Villans, courtesy of a Leon Bailey deflected strike in the 74th minute. Speaking to the media at Villa Park in the aftermath of the loss, the manager was quick to heap praise on our opponents.
“The better team won,” said Guardiola, adding: “Aston Villa was better than us. They are well organised, fast and [have] physical players and team and they are able to control many aspects. That is the reason why they are up there, playing good football and we could not do it. It’s my duty, my job to find the way to come back.”
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He continued: “I give credit to Aston Villa, first of all. They do it. In the first half, we struggled to follow what we spoke [about]. [We said] something at half-time [and] it was much better, the team had another dynamic but we didn’t find the players to make the assist, the cross, the pass.
“We arrived there but we didn’t have the feeling that ‘oh we are going to do something’. And we miss it.”
City were without the influential Rodrigo for the evening game in the West Midlands, alongside the suspended Jack Grealish and injured Jeremy Doku.