Manchester City lost at Villa Park for the third season in a row. Look back on the action with the best facts and Opta data in our Aston Villa vs Man City stats page.
Erling Haaland’s remarkable scoring run came to an end as Aston Villa beat Manchester City 1-0 at Villa Park on Sunday thanks to Matty Cash’s first-half winner.
City had been desperate to not lose further ground of Premier League leaders Arsenal, but Pep Guardiola’s men struggled to create meaningful chances while losing at Villa Park for the third time in a row – they last lost more consecutively away to Villa in the league between 1960 and 1975 (5).
Cash’s 20-yard strike proved decisive, with City unable to rely on the quality of Haaland this time.
The Norwegian striker had scored in each of his previous 12 appearances for club and country, a run dating back to 23 August vs Tottenham, but he hardly had a look-in on Sunday.
Villa’s victory continued their resurgence, becoming the first top-flight team since Preston in 1936-37 to start a season with a five-game winless run and then win four in a row.
Aston Villa vs Man City xG map
City had some joy down the left during the early exchanges, with Savinho giving Cash plenty to think about. But the Brazilian’s final pass was lacking every single time.
The visitors’ dominant start cooled off, however, with Villa getting their noses in front in the 19th minute.
Emi Buendía received a short corner and played the ball to the edge of the box, where Cash evaded one challenge before firing a left-footed effort in from 20 yards for his second goal from outside the box this season – no one has more.
It was an especially good omen for Villa considering they’d not lost a Premier League home game in which they’d scored first since February 2023.
Similarly, there wasn’t much of a response from City. They reached the break having managed just two shots, last having fewer (1) in the first half of a league game in December against Liverpool.
City carried slightly more threat after the interval and would have equalised just before the hour were it not for Amadou Onana sticking out a foot to deny Savinho’s goal-bound effort almost on the line.
Villa went close to a second soon after, though. Jadon Sancho scampered along the byline and managed to work a shoot opportunity, only for Gianluigi Donnarumma to make the crucial save and deny the winger his first goal for the Villans.
That was the Manchester United loanee’s final involvement, suffering the ignominy of being substituted having originally come off the bench in the first half.
City piled the pressure on in the latter stages, with 40% of the action taking place in Villa’s defensive third between the 60th and 75th minutes.
Haaland then thought he’d managed to extend his goalscoring run in the 89th minute when bundling in from close range, but celebrations were halted before they ever really got going due to an offside.
Otherwise, Villa defended valiantly to the extent that goalkeeper Emi Martínez only had to make three saves in the entire game despite City enjoying so much territorial dominance.
Our Opta match centre delivers you all the Aston Villa vs Man City stats from their Premier League meeting at Villa Park.
The match centre below includes team and player stats, expected goals data, passing networks, an Opta chalkboard and more. It gives you everything you need to do your own match analysis.
Underneath the match centre you can find the official Opta stats on the game as well.
Aston Villa vs Man City Stats: Post-Match Facts
Aston Villa have won three of their last five Premier League meetings with the reigning champions (L2), as many victories as they claimed across their 48 prior top-flight games against the current champions (D12 L33).
Manchester City have lost each of their last three away games at Aston Villa – just the third time that Pep Guardiola has lost three consecutive away matches against an opponent across all competitions, also doing so against Liverpool (3 between 2016 and 2018) and Spurs (5 between 2019 and 2023).
Aston Villa have lost just two of their 24 Premier League home games since the start of last season (W14 D8), with no ever-present side losing fewer matches in the competition across that period (Liverpool and Arsenal, also two).
Pep Guardiola has suffered his 50th Premier League defeat in his 351st game, with only Alex Ferguson taking charge of more matches to reach a half century of losses in the competition (367).
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