Maresca After Aston Villa Defeat: "Sometimes We Need to Be Luckier"

Enzo Maresca said Manchester City were unlucky after their defeat to Aston Villa, insisting his side "sometimes need to be luckier".

Beaten 2-1 at Villa Park thanks to 2 goals from Nicolas Jackson, City suffered their first Premier League defeat of the season, bringing their perfect start to the campaign to an end.

Jackson punished simple errors from the Man City defence ruthlessly. The striker first converted after Marc Guehi's cheap loss of possession in the 6th minute, then beat Gianluigi Donnarumma with a stylish finish to find the net again.

Erling Haaland levelled in the 52nd minute to raise hopes of a comeback, and Josko Gvardiol's powerful strike came back off the crossbar, but City could not find a winner.

"When we scored the goal, I felt we were in control for the whole game," Maresca said after the match. "We created a lot of chances, but sometimes you need to be luckier. In the entire second half we allowed just 1 counter-attack and unfortunately they scored from it. We struggled in the first 10-15 minutes; we were expecting them to play a certain way, but they came out differently. We adapted to the game and took control. It was a good game and a good performance from us. Unfortunately we lost, but overall we played well enough to deserve more. We will learn from this and move forward."

Nevertheless, City largely engineered their own downfall. Since the start of last season, the only outfield player in the Premier League to have made more errors leading to a goal than Marc Guehi's 3 is Jan Paul van Hecke (4).

As for goalkeeper Donnarumma, who has made 3 errors leading directly to a goal in the league since joining City, the only goalkeepers to have made more are Bart Verbruggen (5) and Robin Roefs (4).

Maresca's side, who conceded just 8 goals in their first 9 games of the season in all competitions, have shipped 9 goals in their last 4 competitive matches.

With this result, 3 of City's last 5 Premier League defeats have come against Aston Villa, and for the first time since their meeting with Tottenham in February 2023, they have lost 4 consecutive away league games against the same opponent.