Villa heap pain on slumping Man City

PREMIER LEAGUE

- Agence France-Presse

LONDON: Crisis-hit Manchester City slumped to an unthinkable ninth defeat in 12 matches at Aston Villa on Saturday as Nottingham Forest stormed Brentford's fortress to climb to third in the Premier League table.

Alexander Isak scored his first hat-trick in the English top flight as Newcastle ran riot at Ipswich while West Ham and Brighton shared the spoils at the London Stadium.

City boss Pep Guardiola - in the worst spell of his managerial career - made multiple changes following last week's painful derby defeat to Manchester United but it was to no avail as his injury-hit side lost 2-1.

Jhon Duran scored his seventh Premier League goal of the season to put Villa ahead in the 16th minute and Morgan Rogers doubled the advantage for the impressive home side in the 65th minute.

Phil Foden scored his first top-flight goal of the season in stoppage time to pull one back but it proved to be too little too late for the flailing champions, whose spark has vanished.

City have now lost six Premier League games in the current campaign, twice as many as they suffered during the whole of last season, when they were crowned champions for a fourth straight season.

They are realistically out of the title race already - nine points behind leaders Liverpool having played two games more, while Villa leapfrogged them into fifth spot.

Guardiola said he trusted his players to turn things around despite their shocking run of just one win from their past 12 games in all competitions.

"It depends on us," he told the BBC. "The solution is bring the players back. We have just one central defender fit, that is difficult. We have to think positive and I have incredible trust in the guys. Some of them have incredible pride and desire to do it. We have to find a way, step by step, sooner or later to find a way back."