When Manchester City hosted Aston Villa at home at the Ethiad Stadium on Sunday afternoon, it ended in a 3-1 victory for the home side. Rodri gave the home side the lead in the fourth minute, Ilkay Gündogan made it 2-0 in the 39th minute and then Riyad Mahrez made it 3-0 from the penalty spot in the 46th minute when Jack Grealish was brought down by Jacob Ramsey in the visitors’ penalty area .
In the second half, Aston Villa got a consolation goal through Ollie Watkins with just over an hour played, but the Birmingham side never came close to coming back from 3-0 down at half-time.
The big talking point after the match was that Erling Haaland was forced to come off injured at half-time after receiving a blow to the hip – but there was also another situation involving Haaland that got headlines.
The Norwegian is City’s designated penalty taker, but when awarded a first-half stoppage-time penalty, it was Mahrez who slotted it to make it 3-0. No big deal, you might think, but when Pep Guardiola was asked about the situation after the match, he wasn’t entirely happy.
– I like when the players want to take penalties, but there is one player who is responsible for that and that is Erling, Guardiola told Bein Sports after the match and continued:
– Normally speaking, Erling is a penalty taker. I want it that way, but they discussed and Riyad was involved. I don’t know what happened so I’ll have a chat with them tomorrow.
Manchester City are now three points behind league leaders Arsenal ahead of the teams meeting in a league final in London on Wednesday.
