Manchester City have lost 1-0 to Aston Villa in the Premier League and are now six points adrift of leaders Arsenal.
Pep Guardiola’s side went to Villa Park hoping to get back to winning ways, after drawing against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Chelsea.
But there was no danger of that this evening, with City easily inferior to their opponents in the 1-0 loss.
Villa were bang at it from minute one, with City very sloppy on the ball and unable to break Unai Emery’s side down.
It was just a brilliant performance from Villa who were so inventive at times in their play, and it was Leon Bailey who got the winner, which deflected off Ruben Dias.
The man who had to deal with Bailey this evening was Josko Gvardiol, who will want to forget this match as quickly as possible.
Josko Gvardiol may need taking out of the firing line as Manchester City lose at Aston Villa
Tonight, no one in a sky blue shirt can really say they had a good game.
Perhaps Ederson can claim so, as he did keep City in the game with a string of saves in the first-half.
But in terms of the outfielders, it was just a really poor performance and Guardiola has a lot of work to do to get things back on track.
It’s possible the manager will now be considering taking Gvardiol out of the firing line, with the Croatian unfortunately really poor at Villa Park.
Early on, he stepped up to try and play Ollie Watkins offside and completely left Bailey, who might have scored after collecting the through ball.
That was a warning sign, and things only seemed to get worse for the 21-year-old.
Positionally he was all over the place at times and he looked so uncomfortable trying to contain Bailey.
On the goal, the Jamaican winger left him trailing in his wake as he came in from the right wing before shooting.
Nathan Ake in
City as a collective have been really poor defensively in recent weeks, but Gvardiol has arguably been struggling the most.
Pundit Steve Nicol said this week that his struggles have not surprised him, considering he is naturally a centre-half.
The £130,000-a-week man featured in the recent draws with Chelsea and Spurs, and was particularly shaky against the Blues at Stamford Bridge.
Nathan Ake was preferred against Liverpool, and the Dutchman was arguably City’s best player against the Reds and kept Mo Salah very quiet on the whole.
Guardiola has surely got to make Ake his first choice to play on the left side going forward, because Gvardiol is seemingly having a hard time adapting.
Gvardiol is a player with huge potential and he will obviously come good but just at the moment, it looks as though he is feeling the pressure learning a position he isn’t very experienced in. The wise move would be to take him out of the firing line to let him regroup.
