Aston Villa 2-1 Man City: Jhon Duran and Morgan Rogers on target for the Villans as Pep Guardiola’s side fall to their sixth league defeat of the season

Manchester City announced in the minutes before a ninth defeat in 12 that the idea they would sign three or four players next month is ‘fantasy’.

Anyone who doesn’t think this level of churn is immediately necessary might as well move into Magic Kingdom.

Tasteless again. Uninspiring on the ball. Without a spine it is missing. We’ve all seen that before. It’s the crap Christmas movie that’s on repeat and they can’t find the remote.

Keeping track of how many points they trail Liverpool is now a futile exercise and City could potentially find themselves in ninth place by the end of the weekend.

Aston Villa jumped carefully over them, led by Youri Tielemans and a young man in Morgan Rogers who City let go for relatively little money.

Rogers played a key role in the opener, scoring the decisive goal and will feel he has proved something of a point to a club that he believes never gave him the chance to show what could be possible.

Rogers bounced around between loan spells – some good, some indifferent – ​​before Middlesbrough grabbed a kick and made a nice profit on him. He is now an England international.

Cole Palmer and Liam Delap haven’t done badly elsewhere either. James McAtee – who can’t buy a minute, let alone a start – will likely see his career go in the same direction if he ever leaves.

Those are big things and there’s no time for that right now. In the here and now, Guardiola cannot find a way out of this rut ​​which, given that Everton, Leicester, West Ham and Salford City are next, should quickly come to a decisive end, but he is a courageous person to do so with to predict with certainty.

Villa became more robust in recent weeks and had the playbook. Just wait until City confuse the struggling press. Hit them on the break and ace a shot back four. It could and should have been worse than a one-goal defeat.

Keep it tight, no fuss with early doors might have been Guardiola’s rather reasonable message on the way out. If so, those words were ignored: Stefan Ortega – in place of the injured Ederson – made two huge saves in the first 150 seconds.

First when John McGinn responded to Josko Gvardiol’s indecisiveness, allowing Jhon Duran to sprint clear. Ortega tapped a tame effort wide and then tried to keep out a Pau Torres header from the resulting corner as Ilkay Gundogan slept at the near post.

City created sparks in a half in which they dominated the ball without constantly threatening.

Jack Grealish, often the free man, couldn’t manipulate enough bend in one effort and later saw a cross that Gvardiol was looking at.

Villa supporters, whose cheers later saw Grealish accompanied by a security guard through the tunnel, cheered as their former hero cut home a shot for a throw-in.

Villa had been leading long before that, beating a non-existent defensive unit separated by one pass from Youri Tielemans.

John Stones, who came off at half-time, was out of position and Rogers galloped away, spotting Duran in his periphery and the striker bounced past Ortega. Guardiola’s arms were long folded with an air of grim acceptance.

That was a theme of City’s demise. No protection in midfield – or players in that area over-committed to possession they had nothing to do with – and then panicky defenders unable to cope with the pace coming at them.

Much later, when Manuel Akanji sold himself halfway through, City was completely out at sea, only for Matty Cash to thunder into the side netting.

And again when Duran was just in danger of being offside, he thought he had stolen a second. It has reached a point where Einstein would have a say in City’s design.

Duran almost robbed Ortega of possession in the away zone; Rogers rode challenges to crash into the post.

However, warnings are currently optional at City. With 25 minutes to go, in what had been an agonizing second-half match, the visitors allowed Rogers to run. He ran and ran, probably about 50 yards.

He took three defenders out of the game, but that description almost overstates the deception.

He was given space to run and once he got bored and went to McGinn, he was given space by substitute Kyle Walker on half-time to cut over Ortega.

A moment Rogers deserved. Not only because of this performance, where he was a constant thorn in his side, but also because of the journey that brought him to this point.

That one of his crowning days as a Villa star came against former employers will taste very sweet indeed.

Phil Foden scored a consolation after a Lucas Digne error, although a comeback was never imminent. “We have scored a goal,” they sang in the away match.