Manchester City striker Erling Haaland criticized his own performance after the reigning champions fell to their ninth defeat in twelve matches at Villa Park on Saturday, Soccernet.football reports.
Aston Villa earned a 2-1 victory against City, with Jhon Duran opening the scoring in the 16th minute and Morgan Rogers extending the lead after the hour mark. Despite Phil Foden pulling one back for City in stoppage time, the champions were largely outplayed throughout the match.
Haaland endured an uncharacteristically quiet 90 minutes against the Villans, managing just 18 touches—only one inside the opposition box—and registering only a single shot which ended up going wide off the mark.
Reflecting on the defeat in a post-match interview with TNT Sports, Haaland admitted: “We are disappointed, it’s not good enough. It’s not good enough from me.”
“They’re good players, it’s difficult to come here but we’re Man City we should be out there,” Haaland sighed. “We have to continue, we have to believe and we have to keep working hard.
“We have to continue. First I’m looking at myself, I haven’t been doing things good enough, I haven’t been scoring my chances. I have to do better, I haven’t been good enough.”
Following City’s consistent run of bad results across all competitions, questions as to whether head coach Guardiola can change his side’s fortunes are beginning to mount. However, Haaland insists that the Spaniard retains the belief of his dressing room.
“He won the Premier League six times in seven years,” the Norweigian noted, “So we will never forget that. He will find the solutions. He has been doing that every single year. We still believe in him, we have to work harder than ever right now.”
