Aston Villa suffer heartbreaking late defeat at Man City

National World - LocalTV

Birmingham World reporter Charlie Haffenden reacts to Aston Villa's last-gasp 2-1 loss away at Manchester City in the Premier League.

Transcript

00:00Aston Villa's Champions League hopes have just taken a major dent here at Etihad Stadium.

00:07Manchester City running out 2-1 victors, courtesy of a 94th minute winner from former Wolverhampton Wanderers man, Mateus Nunes.

00:15Unai Emery's men not quite at the races here at the Etihad, all night long really.

00:20It looked like though they were going to get a point in a 1-1 draw, but Mateus Nunes did have other ideas,

00:25and as did Jeremy Doku, who played such a key role in that last minute goal.

00:30Doku off the bench from Manchester City made a huge impact, and skinned one of Aston Villa's substitutes, Axel Duzarcy,

00:36who made a pretty poor attempt at a challenge.

00:39Doku sprinted past him, got down the left-hand side, one of the best in the world at sprinting away from defenders.

00:45And then he played an exquisite outside-of-the-boot pass that evaded all four of Aston Villa's players running back.

00:51It was the rest of the back three, and maybe Yuri Tielemans or Bubakar Kamara trying to get back and make a last-ditch intervention.

00:58Unable to read though, just the speed in the direction of that cross from Doku.

01:03And then Nunes was there at the far post.

01:05Quite a tight angle, under so much pressure as well, given how much was riding on this game.

01:10Slossed it into that corner, into the far corner, to make the Etihad go wild.

01:14The atmosphere here was pretty poor from the home fans, I must say.

01:18Quite a lot of empty seats as well throughout the game.

01:21Obviously, it is a midweek, but considering the magnitude of the fixture, you'd expect it to be absolutely packed out here.

01:26I believe there was a little bit of a problem with the price of tickets.

01:31Over £70 was the cheapest, so if it's something to do with that, then I suppose fair play.

01:36But otherwise, a bit disappointing from the home support.

01:38The Villa support though, very impressive, very loud in numbers, in a packed out-away end.

01:43They'll be going home disappointed though, unfortunately, because of the results.

01:47And the performance really.

01:49Marcus Rashford hit the post within 17 seconds.

01:52Had he scored that opportunity, maybe this game could have gone very differently.

01:56Rashford did score from the penalty spot as well.

01:58He's got so much history in this fixture, of course.

02:01Having been at Manchester United for so many years and made so many appearances in the derbies here,

02:05it was great for him to score a goal against his old bitter rivals.

02:09I'm sure that would have felt good for him as well, because of how much abuse he was receiving from the Man City fans.

02:15He was scoring that goal to equalise after Bernardo Silva had taken the lead for Man City in the seventh minute.

02:21Awful defending from Villa, simply put.

02:24Matty Cash didn't do well enough to track Omar Mahmoud's run down Man City's left, Villa's right.

02:30And Mahmoud got to the byline, cut it back.

02:33And Ezra Konza, it's a hapless attempt really at trying to clear away and trying to block the cutback.

02:38And made its way through to Bernardo Silva.

02:40And then Emi Martinez, he's so often called the world's number one, but he didn't look like it here.

02:45As he tried to make the save and kind of passed it into his own net.

02:48Far from convincing.

02:49I don't know if he was trying to catch it, if he was trying to parry it or what.

02:52But he got his arms, he got his hands messed up and he went into that bottom corner.

02:56That kind of set City on their way.

02:58I know that Rashford got the goal.

03:00It was a clear penalty that Craig Pawson had waved away originally.

03:04VAR, it's quite rare that they will intervene without a clear pause in play, a natural pause in play.

03:10But they asked him to look at the monitor while play was still ongoing.

03:13It was immediate after looking at one replay that Jacob Ramsey had been tripped by Ruben Diaz.

03:17And it was a deserved penalty.

03:19So Villa at least getting that.

03:20But other than that, and other than the Rashford hitting the post, there just weren't many opportunities in the game.

03:25Rashford did have one in the second half.

03:27They potentially could have put away as he rounded Stefan Ortega and had a tight angle.

03:31But it was always going to be difficult to score from such an acute angle as he found the side netting.

03:35And I'm just trying to think really of any other opportunities for Villa.

03:38I don't think they had them.

03:39Man City, I think possession in the first half changed hands a bit more than they did in the second.

03:43As Man City really dug into a rhythm, did very well to keep Morgan Rodgers quiet, actually.

03:49I think that's important that Aston Villa, they play best when Rodgers is on song and he wasn't tonight.

03:55But that's kind of the rest of my thoughts here from the Etihad.

03:58Unfortunately, a painful result for Aston Villa.

04:00They were one point behind Man City before tonight.

04:03They're now four points behind.

04:04It's one team you feel that they won't be able to catch up now.

04:07So you need someone like a Nottingham Forest or a Chelsea or a Newcastle United to fall away if Villa are going to get into the Champions League.

04:15But there is a game at the weekend, a massive one at Wembley Stadium, a different competition.

04:19An FA Cup semi-final to look forward to against Crystal Palace.

04:22I'll see you there.

04:23Make sure to check out my coverage of tonight's game and the game at Wembley on birminghamworld.uk.

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