Aston Villa suffered a 4-1 defeat to Manchester City on Wednesday night, a fixture that saw Unai Emery heavily rotate his side.
It was never going to be easy for Aston Villa to go to the Etihad and win against Manchester City however, the Villans put up a good fight.
The first half was mostly impressive from the visitors, who despite going 1-0 down after just 11 minutes, bounced back to level the scoring through Jhon Duran.
A woeful piece of defending moments before the interval saw all of Villa’s hard work undone, subsequently opening the floodgates to see the treble winners take control in the second half.
Putting the scoreline aside, it wasn’t the worst performance from the visitors, who had a heavily changed squad from the one that beat Wolves on Saturday evening.
Unai Emery explains Aston Villa squad selection against Man City
Unai Emery opted to make six changes to his starting XI ahead of the Manchester City test, seeing key players such as Leon Bailey, Youri Tielemans and Pau Torres drop to the bench.
Six changes were meant to be five, however, Emi Martinez was forced to be replaced by Robin Olsen before kick-off as he was unwell.
It was a surprise to see the manager rotate his squad so heavily given the task in hand at the Etihad, seeing the boss explain his decisions when speaking to TNT Sports after the fixture.
“We have some injuries, we played Saturday and again this week. We have to try and save some players.”
“We decided to do a competitive team with some young players too to get some confidence. At the end of the match, we know they deserved the match they were better than us and they showed it.”
Unai Emery’s changes made sense for Aston Villa
On paper, it looked like a certain win for City, as Emery combined a host of players in the hope of resting his favoured stars for the challenges ahead.
It was far from a result determined by Villa’s changes and more so of City’s quality, with the likes of Duran, Tim Iroegbunam and Olsen doing well up against the treble winners.
The Villans can now move on without carrying needless fatigue, particularly with important fixtures ahead in both the Premier League and the Europa Conference League.
All in all, the scoreline didn’t reflect how well the Midlands club battled to attempt to contend with the hosts, whose performance was driven by the individual brilliance of Phil Foden, who netted a hattrick.
Emery will now hope to move on from the defeat at the Etihad, with Brentford arriving at Villa Park on Saturday followed by the first leg against LOSC Lille on Thursday evening.
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