Manu Akanji hints at Man City dressing room mood after Aston Villa defeat

Manu Akanji offered a telling smile and a shake of the head when asked what mood Pep Guardiola was in after Manchester City's defeat at Aston Villa. "Let's say like this, he wasn't happy," the defender said, keen not to break the sanctity of what was said behind closed doors.

"He wasn't happy, that's the best way to describe it. The mood is not good. What we talk about in the changing room stays in the changing room but we've got to do things better. It wasn't good enough."

Akanji fronted up after his City side were firmly second best at Villa Park, watching the hosts leapfrog City into third with a fully-deserved victory. It was City's fourth Premier League game in a row without victory, following three draws, but the Swiss international insists the best way forward is not to look at the table or form-book.

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"We maybe don't have to look at the standings where we are now," he said. "The season is still long and there's a lot of points to win. We have to go game by game and get three points against Luton.

"There is a phase. Sometimes you get more luck and sometimes you are more unlucky. I don't want to count these games to the ones before [the three draws], because the ones before were different. We were the better team. Even today we can go in front with the double chance we have and we didn't score it, maybe the game takes a different turn. We have to analyse it and get better at the weekend."

Pinpointing what exactly went wrong at Villa was hard for Akanji in the immediate aftermath of a poor defeat, but he did look towards costly individual duels