Erling Haaland provides brutal assessment of his own form

Erling Haaland shouldered blame for Manchester City’s dismal run of form after netting once in his last six Premier League games.

Still the division’s top scorer, Haaland was a peripheral figure during City’s ninth defeat in 12 matches at Aston Villa.

And the Norwegian claimed that his performances have not been up to scratch as the defending champions slipped deeper into a crisis.

‘It affects us all, of course,’ Haaland said. ‘It affects me. I haven’t been good enough and I haven’t delivered for City this season. I need to step up and work harder, I just need to get better. It just isn’t good enough. I will do everything I can to do better.’

‘We’re not able to win matches any more, we can’t control matches like we used to. We used to control matches way more.

‘In the defining moments I’m failing to score, in the defining moments we’re conceding goals. The margins are small and that’s how it is, I will do everything I can to turn this around.’

City created few chances at Villa Park and Haaland didn’t register a shot on goal – but Pep Guardiola firmly disagreed with his star striker’s assessment of his form.

‘Without him he would be even worse but I like players to be that way,’ Guardiola added. ‘It's the only chance we have to get better.

‘I don't agree with Erling because he tried and he needs to be delivered the right balls in the right spots but now we recover and we fight for the next one.’

Guardiola praised his team’s first-half performance before John Stones informed him that had had suffered a recurrence of the foot injury that kept him out for six games. Kyle Walker replaced Stones, leading to City rejigging their set-up.

‘It wasn't good in the second half,’ Guardiola added. ‘We dropped, maybe because I changed the pressing to adapt the quality for our captain, and we struggled to do what we had done in the first half really well.

‘The first half was better than we played against (Manchester) United, the second was not good enough, we lost again. Recovery, stay positive, thanks to some players for the pride they showed on the pitch today and how they want to help with the difficulties.’

Morgan Rogers, who scored the clinching second goal against his old club, still believes he has another level to reach.

‘Sometimes I will do the hard bit and then struggle to find that bit of quality and have that composure,’ Rogers said. ‘This season I have squandered a few chances that I would have liked to score.’

Unai Emery added: ‘In the second half their confidence was going down and ours was increasing. It was fantastic how the players responded to everything we had worked on before.

‘We were defending too low in the first half and we had to get into a good position to try to stop them dominating the ball. We defended well all game but we played with more personality in the second half than we did in the first.’