Guehi’s mistake led to Villa’s opening goal by Nicolas Jackson.

Manchester City boss Enzo Maresca is not worried by the form of defender Marc Guehi after his mistake contributed to their 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa.

Guehi mis-controlled a high ball out from the back which allowed Nicolas Jackson to give Villa a half-time lead.

Erling Haaland nodded in his ninth league goal of the campaign to get City level but Jackson had the final say when he scored for a second time to hand Villa the points.

Guehi has been under the spotlight following a series of high-profile errors that have led to goals recently, and after also receiving a yellow card in the first half, he was substituted at the break.

He made a critical early mistake that helped gift Spain a win over England during the international break as well as conceding a penalty in last week’s win over Ipswich, and Saturday’s error added to his recent catalogue.

However, Maresca insists he has no concerns about his central defender’s form.

He said: “It’s just a technical decision, like it happens in all the games that the manager decides to make a change.

“I’m not worried about Marc at all. I know that he is playing every minute since the season started with us and with the international team.

“It’s not easy but the change was also because he had a yellow card, and the way we want to be aggressive sometimes, to have one yellow card can be dangerous. But I’m not worried at all.”

Maresca’s 100 per cent start to life as City boss in the league came to an end which means they have now lost the last four times at Villa Park.

However, Maresca felt his side should have come away with something from the match.

He added: “I think we deserved more from the game, for the amount of chances that we created and for the chances that we conceded.

“We lost because we were probably not being clinical enough in their box. Sometimes when you concede the first goal because of a mistake. The second goal came from a transition, it’s difficult to avoid.

“We will try to learn from the game, move on and try to improve.

“We need to find that balance. Second half I don’t remember any more shots or any more chances for them apart from the goal we conceded in transition.”

Aston Villa have put their slow start to the season behind them and the win over City brought them a sixth win from seven in all competitions.

Boss Unai Emery believes his side’s recent upturn in form is due to the time his squad needed to adapt to his style.

He said: “Manchester City are the best team in the league, until now. They are one of the best teams in the world.

“This is the level we were last year and getting the levels close with those teams.

“This year we started poor. We needed time to understand better how we need to improve and work individually and tactically.

“Today this test was a good test and we responded. The players showed us the capacity to recover the level of last year. This is a good example of how we are progressing.”