Pep even more driven to help City return to winning ways

Pep Guardiola said he was more determined than ever to help inspire City back to winning ways in the wake of Saturday’s 2-1 Premier League loss at Aston Villa.

Though Phil Foden struck late on in injury time, earlier goals from Jhon Duran and Morgan Rogers proved enough to secure all three points for the hosts and extend City’s tough run of form.

Today’s setback made it nine defeats in the past 12 games for Guardiola’s side and saw us slip to sixth in the table with Villa leapfrogging us into fifth.

City’s cause also wasn’t helped by the loss of John Stones who after returning the starting line for the first time in a month was forced off with a recurrence of his injury at half-time.

However, Guardiola instead insisted he was even more determined to help provide the guidance and inspiration to help his players turn the tide both results and performance wise.

“If there is a moment that I cannot overthink, it is right now. [I] try to be simple, stick to my principles and give certainty to the team,” Guardiola reflected.

“Tell them they can do it and how they can give benefit for the team defensively and offensively.

“The starting line-up was good. It’s not an easy place to come and today we played much better than last season [here].

“We take the positives and reflect. When I see the players before, during and after and how they behave I feel pride.

“We have to find the balance to create more chances than we concede.

“We don’t have a defence for the results. They are not good. It’s about what I can do with my people to get the results back and continue.

“Hopefully the players will come back step by step then we can continue.

“Then let’s go. We will recover and try to see how many players can play against Everton and we will try to do it.”

City’s cause at Villa Park wasn’t helped by the half-time  withdrawal of Stones.

Restored to the starting line-up for the first time in almost a month, the England central defender then had to go off at the break after a suffering a recurrence of the issue that had kept him sidelined.

However, rather than seek to blame the raft of injuries that have decimated his squad all season, Guardiola said it was a situation he and his players had to deal with.

“In the last 10 minutes, he said it had come back again, and he had a disturbance in what he had the last month,” Pep revealed.

“It’s the same as it has been for three months. It’s the same but I have to deal with that.

“Manu [Akanji] had two training sessions and played 90 minutes. Same for Kova [Mateo Kovacic]. He has been one month out after international break.

“What do we do? We have to play the games with the players that we have.

“We lose against Sporting CP and Brighton after we started well but we were not consistent in the second half and that is a situation we have to deal with.

“I am looking forward to Everton.”