With more than £240million of reinforcement in the middle and seven wins from seven under Enzo Maresca, the Blues made the trip down the M6 with more hope for this game in spite of the cloud hanging over the club. But that only made it more disappointing when they trailed inside six minutes and Villa cut through their lines time and again in the first half.

To be fair, City rallied after another Marc Guehi error had seen them behind, but Maresca had seen enough. Guehi and Rayan Cherki were hooked at half-time, with Rico Lewis and Phil Foden on instead with the defence shuffled to allow Abdukodir Khusanov back to the middle where he always looks more comfortable.

Inside eight minutes, City were level as Ndiaye stood up a perfect cross for Haaland to head home. The momentum was now with the visitors and Josko Gvardiol had gone close with a rasping drive when suddenly Villa were ahead again as they broke and a quick shot from Jackson surprised Gianluigi Donnarumma.

As savvy as Maresca's subs have been all season, City games have also been more entertaining than the manager would like; his point after the Sunderland win that he would rather win 1-0 than 5-3 still stands. There have also been too many individual errors from players that have made games harder than they needed to be.

Here, in the eighth league match, that finally proved more decisive than any in-game switches or individual quality as Villa proved too good for too long to let City off the hook. It was another entertaining performance from City, yet that ultimately contributed to their defeat.

Maresca said he learnt a lot about his players from the PSG defeat and there will be plenty to think about from this game. The midfield was too open in the first half and there were some wildly wayward balls when the team were chasing a second equaliser.

This performance obviously won't result in City going down, but the balance needs to be better for them to trend up again when Brighton visit next week.