Pep Guardiola makes surprise Man City admission despite Aston Villa victory | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola admitted that this would still be a "bad" season for the dethroned Premier League champions even if they qualify for the Champions League.

With City's clash against Aston Villa locked at 1-1 deep into stoppage-time at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night, it looked as if Guardiola's side had missed their opportunity to climb up into third in the Premier League table.

Bernardo Silva's seventh-minute opener, courtesy of some superb wing play from Omar Marmoush, had been cancelled out by a controversial penalty from Aston Villa loanee Marcus Rashford, again preferred up front to the recently outspoken Ollie Watkins.

A draw wouldn't have been a disastrous result for the reigning Premier League champions but Guardiola would almost certainly have been disappointed to drop points. Luckily, he had Jeremy Doku up his sleeve to provide a superb game-changing assist for Matheus Nunes to break Aston Villa hearts.

Jeremy Doku blitzed away from Axel Disasi to set up City's winner / Carl Recine/GettyImages

Guardiola erupted in a burst of joy but did concede: "The season has been bad. It doesn't matter about the final or if we finish in Champions League. What makes you feel good is the Premier League. It happened and sometimes you have bad seasons. Liverpool will be champions and the level of teams is outstanding."

Nevertheless, the Catalan coach reserved plenty of praise for City's match-winner Doku. "Jeremy always gives you something, for the crowd, we changed the game," Guardiola said of the impact of his substitute. "In the first three or four actions [against] Disasi and Malen, he could not do the action.

"But in the end... for me, Jeremy is the best player in the world in the first metres. In the first five metres he's unstoppable."

Guardiola's lavish comments could be perceived as overly emotional after an important win, but there's certainly merit to his argument. Doku's explosive burst of pace past Disasi was impressive – though the less said about the Frenchman's decision to lunge a foot in the better – and was the key to opening up the space required to put the ball into Villa's penalty area.

What followed was a sumptuous outside of the boot flick across the six-yard box that a prime Kevin De Bruyne would have been proud of.

"We played very good. Aggressive in our duels and back four were unbelievable. Really pleased," Guardiola exclaimed about City's overall performance. "Football is emotion. The last two games were so difficult so we are really pleased. I was so happy. I have to admit it! Try to not lose as 1-1 was not a bad result but the action from Jeremy was so good.

"The team fought a lot. The performance was really good. It is a fantastic team."