BIRMINGHAM/BENGALURU:
Aston Villa beat crisis-hit Manchester City 2-1 on Saturday to heap more misery on floundering manager Pep Guardiola, who has now suffered nine defeats in his past 12 matches.
Jhon Duran finished off a fine team move to give the home side an early lead and Morgan Rogers doubled Villa’s advantage in the 65th minute.
Phil Foden scored his first Premier League goal of the season in stoppage time but it proved to be too little too late.
Pep Guardiola, in the worst run of his glittering career, said Friday that “sooner or later” things will turn around but City’s fear factor has vanished.
The win lifts Unai Emery’s inconsistent Villa team to fifth in the Premier League table, one place above sinking City.
Guardiola made six changes to the team side that lost last week’s Manchester derby, bringing in goalkeeper Stefan Ortega and reshaping his defence with Rico Lewis, John Stones and Manuel Akanji.
Mateo Kovacic and Jack Grealish also returned.
But the defending champions started the match in chaotic fashion and could have been behind inside 20 seconds.
Untidy work from Josko Gvardiol allowed John McGinn to steal the ball and he fed Duran, whose shot from outside the box was pushed behind by Ortega.
Villa were millimetres away from taking the lead from the resulting corner, with Ortega, in for first-choice goalkeeper Ederson, producing a superb save to deny Pau Torres.
City then settled and their possession numbers topped 75 percent but they created little.
Instead it was Villa who took the lead through Duran after a superb team move, scoring his seventh Premier League goal of the season.
Youri Tielemans delivered a wonderful defence-splitting pass to Rogers, who burst through City’s backline with ease before finding Duran on his right and the Colombian international finished crisply.
Phil Foden tested Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez in the 35th minute after an incisive move involving Lewis.
And Gvardiol squandered a glorious chance moments before half-time, heading over a Grealish cross.
Guardiola brought on Kyle Walker for Stones at the break.
Minutes into the second half Villa’s Matty Cash lashed an attempt into the side netting after a speedy attack before Duran had a strike ruled out for offside.
Everton’s new owners back Dyche as manager
Everton manager Sean Dyche said he has the support of the club’s new owners but that he needs to deliver on the field to prove himself.
Friedkin Group completed the takeover of the Premier League club on Thursday, in the middle of a season where the team has struggled on the pitch, sitting 16th in the table with only three wins in 15 matches.
“You’ve got to win games, that doesn’t change and I’m well aware of that,” Dyche told reporters on Friday. “They mentioned that during this period of buying the club they’ve done a lot of homework and they understand the challenges that I’ve been through and we have collectively been through.”
Dyche said Everton’s new executive chairman, Marc Watts, had expressed his support for the manager, who led the club through a tumultuous 2023-24 campaign where they fought to avoid relegation after being docked eight points for breaching the league’s financial rules. “He said, ‘We’ve got no reason to question you. Every reason to support what you’ve been doing and hopefully support it further going forwards’,” Dyche said. “The obvious caveat is what I’m saying, not what they’re saying. I know you’ve still got to win games. While you’re winning games, hopefully, you continue to build a relationship. And that’s when they go, ‘Right, you’re our guy or you’re not our guy’.”
Watts said the new administration understood that the club had faced significant challenges on and off the field for several years. AFP/REUTERS
