Maresca Insists Man City Did Not Deserve Defeat Against Aston Villa

Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca has insisted his side did not deserve to lose to Aston Villa despite suffering their first Premier League defeat of the season on Saturday.

Manchester City fell to a 2-1 defeat at Villa Park, with Nicolas Jackson scoring twice to punish defensive mistakes despite the visitors creating several chances.

Jackson opened the scoring in the seventh minute after capitalising on Marc Guehi’s poor first touch. The Villa forward won possession, drove towards goal and finished confidently to give the hosts an early lead.

Erling Haaland equalised shortly after half-time, but Jackson struck again on the hour mark, converting Ibrahim Mbaye’s cross to secure all three points for Villa.

Speaking to TNT Sports, via Yahoo Sports, Maresca praised his players’ overall performance but admitted they needed to defend better.

“Performance overall was good,” the Italian said. “The amount of chances we created. Second half, we only conceded the transition goal.

“Sometimes you have to defend a bit better or be a bit more lucky in that transition, but it’s football. We learn from that and move on.”

Asked whether Villa’s goals could have been prevented, Maresca replied: “Absolutely, both. Sometimes you have to be a bit more lucky because we only conceded those two chances. But we created a lot of chances.

“We had many chances. We played most of the game in their box, but you have to be clinical and avoid mistakes like the two goals we conceded.”

The defeat extended City’s recent struggles against Villa, having won just one of their previous five meetings. City have also lost their last five visits to Villa Park, with their most recent victory at the ground coming in 2021.

Despite the setback, Maresca maintained that his team’s performance did not warrant a defeat, although he acknowledged that improvements were needed.

“We will try again next season,” he said. “I can only analyse today, and I don’t think we deserved to lose today, but we lost.

“You can always learn something. For sure there are things we can do better today.”

Manchester City will look to return to winning ways when they host Brighton on Wednesday. The Seagulls have made an impressive start to the campaign, sitting third in the Premier League table after losing just once in their opening seven matches.

Maresca expects another difficult test and stressed the importance of recovering quickly before the midweek fixture.

“We will see,” he added. “It will be a different game; they are doing a fantastic job. It will be tough in both games. But we must recover and prepare for that.”