Aston Villa’s next task in a season where they’ve upset the usual top-four hopefuls comes on Wednesday night when they visit Premier League title challengers Manchester City.
The Villans established their Champions League credentials with a brilliant opening to the campaign which even had manager Unai Emery responding to suggestions of a possible title tilt.
That hasn’t quite panned out with the top three establishing a meaty gap, but Villa can still close the gap on Man City, who were held to a dull and goalless draw with Arsenal last time out, to just two points with victory at the Etihad. They’ve already beaten Pep Guardiola’s outfit this season, too.
Here are the results of the last ten meetings between Man City and Aston Villa.
Aston Villa undoubtedly encountered a Man City side in a surprising slump at the start of December last year, but their victory was no less deserved as Leon Bailey scored the only goal of the game.
The Jamaica international’s strike may have deflected its way past Ederson but the hosts exploited the absence of pivotal City midfielder Rodri and enjoyed the better openings, taking 22 shots to the visitors’ two.
It was Villa’s first victory over City since 2013, when Karim El Ahmadi, Leandro Bacuna and Andreas Weimann scored in a 3-2 success.
There were 15 games between those two Villa victories, with City failing to win just two of them. This February meeting was one of the few Premier League matches in 2022/23 that Erling Haaland didn’t manage to score in.
The Norwegian striker came off at half-time with his side already three goals up courtesy of efforts from Rodri, Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez. Ollie Watkins did pull one back just after the hour-mark, but it proved to be little more than a consolation.
After Haaland scored his tenth league goal on just the sixth matchday of the 2022/23 season, Man City failed to extend their lead and were made to pay when Jacob Ramsey fired a ball across to Bailey to bag the hosts a point.
Aston Villa were lightyears away from their current positivity under former boss Steven Gerrard, with this draw in September earning them just a fourth point from six outings.
Man City secured their sixth Premier League title and eighth in English football overall when they staged a late comeback to down Villa.
The visitors looked well set to deny City their championship as goals from Matty Cash and Philippe Coutinho had them 2-0 up with 20 minutes to play. However, Gundogan stepped up with two clutch strikes either side of Rodri’s equaliser to stop former Liverpool midfielder Gerrard from helping his side win the title.
Pep Guardiola brought up with 150th Premier League win with Man City with this success over Villa in December 2021.
The Cityzens had once again spluttered at the start of another ultimately successful title charge and it was a depleted side that had to get the job done here as Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva netted. Watkins struck at the start of the second half but the visitors did enough to earn all three points.
|
Result |
Date |
Competition |
|---|---|---|
|
Aston Villa 1-0 Man City |
6 December 2023 |
Premier League |
|
Man City 3-1 Aston Villa |
12 February 2023 |
Premier League |
|
Aston Villa 1-1 Man City |
3 September 2022 |
Premier League |
|
Man City 3-2 Aston Villa |
22 May 2022 |
Premier League |
|
Aston Villa 1-2 Man City |
1 December 2021 |
Premier League |
|
Aston Villa 1-2 Man City |
21 April 2021 |
Premier League |
|
Man City 2-0 Aston Villa |
20 January 2021 |
Premier League |
|
Aston Villa 1-2 Man City |
1 March 2020 |
Carabao Cup final |
|
Aston Villa 1-6 Man City |
12 January 2020 |
Premier League |
|
Man City 3-0 Aston Villa |
26 October 2019 |
Premier League |
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