Villa beat Man City for the second time in two years at Villa Park

Aston Villa welcomed an underperforming Manchester City to Villa Park looking for consecutive wins at Villa Park over the Premier League champions for the first time since 1993 yesterday afternoon.

In the build-up to the game, there was a good festive feel around Villa Park with Villans seemingly feeling quite positive going into the game. Who would have thought that would be the case when you face a Pep Guardiola side?

Report: Aston Villa 2-1 Manchester City

Unai Emery handed Jhon Durán his third consecutive start as Ollie Watkins was once again named on the substitutes bench. Amadao Onana returned from injury and came straight back into the team as Diego Carlos made way, who wasn’t named in the squad at all due to injury.

Villa started quickly out the blocks and should have taken the lead inside the first minute when John McGinn nicked the ball from Joško Gvardiol, setting Durán through on goal but Stefan Ortega was able to deny the Columbian.

The home side continued to cause City problems and soon took the lead. Youri Tielemans picked out the run of Morgan Rogers before the former Manchester City man squared Durán to make it 1-0.

The visitors began to dominate the ball without ever looking like a real threat. The biggest threat they had came from former Villan Jack Grealish but he lacked the final ball, with one shot going out for a throw-in on the opposite side of the pitch.

Rogers may have made Guardiola question his decision to allow him to leave as he dominated the game with Phil Foden bouncing off him at one point.

The England international scored Villa’s second in the second half after linking up with John McGinn to all but secure all three points for Villa.

City pulled a goal back late on when Lucas Digne slipped on the ball in the penalty area allowing Foden to score a consultation goal.

What the boss said

Emery: “Today, how we started, scoring a goal, doing a good press, the first five to 10 minutes, getting corners, was very important for the confidence it gave us.

“Then they had two chances to score, we were defending so low. We spoke in the dressing room at half-time, the plan was to push them, stop them dominating the ball and, secondly, when building up, stop them pressing us, to get our possession.

“We did that better and stopped them. I think that was key. We started creating chances and scored the [second] goal. Our confidence increased, theirs was going down. I thought it was fantastic.”