Nightmare before Christmas – AS.com

Alarm at the Etihad Stadium. City is still in free fall and showing no signs of straightening its path. Before visiting Villa Park they had lost eight of their last eleven games, a number of defeats they had previously had in 106 games. Unequivocal sign of the bad moment that Guardiola's team is going through after years of hegemony in English football. Not even the return of Akanji and Stones to the starting lineup offered security to a defense that was accumulating errors and defeats.

The game had not yet reached 20 seconds when McGinn snatched the ball from Gvardiol in the opposite half. Durán stood up to Ortega, but he cleared his shot for a corner. In the next action it was Torres who tested the German goalkeeper with a good header. Durán tried again in the eighth minute, shortly before opening the can, after the first quarter of an hour.

Tielemans overcame the timid Mancunian pressure with a ball into space that left Rogers and Durán alone on the edge of the rival area. The Colombian made no mistake, and opened the scoring by deceiving Ortega with a first-time shot. City wanted to react, always through Grealish. The Englishman, who received boos from Villa Park upon his return to what was his home, was the most insistent. But it was not until the final stretch of the first half when the reigning champion intimidated Martínez. Shyly. The Argentine did not have too many problems clearing Foden and Grealish's shots.

With the start of the second half came the sentence. City looked for the tie again, although with little conviction, and Aston Villa warned on the counterattack. And then it hit. Rogers shot against the post in the 60th minute, and four later he led and finished a counterattack that finally disarmed a Manchester City team that will spend Christmas outside of the European positions. They lost fifth place, which goes to the team led by Emery. The only good news for the celestials was Foden's goal, which although it came too late to bother Villa, was enough for the Englishman to break his scoring tally this season. It's costing the Stockport player. Like the rest of his team.

Follow the Diario AS channel on WhatsAppwhere you will find all the sport in a single space: the current news of the day, the agenda with the latest news of the most important sporting events, the most outstanding images, the opinion of the best AS brands, reports, videos, and some humor from time to time.