Birmingham World reporter Charlie Haffenden reacts to Aston Villa's last-gasp 2-1 loss away at Manchester City in the Premier League.
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00:00Aston Villa's Champions League hopes have just taken a major dent here at Etihad Stadium.
00:07Manchester City running out 2-1 victors, courtesy of a 94th minute winner from former Wolverhampton Wanderers man, Mateus Nunes.
00:15Unai Emery's men not quite at the races here at the Etihad, all night long really.
00:20It looked like though they were going to get a point in a 1-1 draw, but Mateus Nunes did have other ideas,
00:25and as did Jeremy Doku, who played such a key role in that last minute goal.
00:30Doku off the bench from Manchester City made a huge impact, and skinned one of Aston Villa's substitutes, Axel Duzarcy,
00:36who made a pretty poor attempt at a challenge.
00:39Doku sprinted past him, got down the left-hand side, one of the best in the world at sprinting away from defenders.
00:45And then he played an exquisite outside-of-the-boot pass that evaded all four of Aston Villa's players running back.
00:51It was the rest of the back three, and maybe Yuri Tielemans or Bubakar Kamara trying to get back and make a last-ditch intervention.
00:58Unable to read though, just the speed in the direction of that cross from Doku.
01:03And then Nunes was there at the far post.
01:05Quite a tight angle, under so much pressure as well, given how much was riding on this game.
01:10Slossed it into that corner, into the far corner, to make the Etihad go wild.
01:14The atmosphere here was pretty poor from the home fans, I must say.
01:18Quite a lot of empty seats as well throughout the game.
01:21Obviously, it is a midweek, but considering the magnitude of the fixture, you'd expect it to be absolutely packed out here.
01:26I believe there was a little bit of a problem with the price of tickets.
01:31Over £70 was the cheapest, so if it's something to do with that, then I suppose fair play.
01:36But otherwise, a bit disappointing from the home support.
01:38The Villa support though, very impressive, very loud in numbers, in a packed out-away end.
01:43They'll be going home disappointed though, unfortunately, because of the results.
01:47And the performance really.
01:49Marcus Rashford hit the post within 17 seconds.
01:52Had he scored that opportunity, maybe this game could have gone very differently.
01:56Rashford did score from the penalty spot as well.
01:58He's got so much history in this fixture, of course.
02:01Having been at Manchester United for so many years and made so many appearances in the derbies here,
02:05it was great for him to score a goal against his old bitter rivals.
02:09I'm sure that would have felt good for him as well, because of how much abuse he was receiving from the Man City fans.
02:15He was scoring that goal to equalise after Bernardo Silva had taken the lead for Man City in the seventh minute.
02:21Awful defending from Villa, simply put.
02:24Matty Cash didn't do well enough to track Omar Mahmoud's run down Man City's left, Villa's right.
02:30And Mahmoud got to the byline, cut it back.
02:33And Ezra Konza, it's a hapless attempt really at trying to clear away and trying to block the cutback.
02:38And made its way through to Bernardo Silva.
02:40And then Emi Martinez, he's so often called the world's number one, but he didn't look like it here.
02:45As he tried to make the save and kind of passed it into his own net.
02:48Far from convincing.
02:49I don't know if he was trying to catch it, if he was trying to parry it or what.
02:52But he got his arms, he got his hands messed up and he went into that bottom corner.
02:56That kind of set City on their way.
02:58I know that Rashford got the goal.
03:00It was a clear penalty that Craig Pawson had waved away originally.
03:04VAR, it's quite rare that they will intervene without a clear pause in play, a natural pause in play.
03:10But they asked him to look at the monitor while play was still ongoing.
03:13It was immediate after looking at one replay that Jacob Ramsey had been tripped by Ruben Diaz.
03:17And it was a deserved penalty.
03:19So Villa at least getting that.
03:20But other than that, and other than the Rashford hitting the post, there just weren't many opportunities in the game.
03:25Rashford did have one in the second half.
03:27They potentially could have put away as he rounded Stefan Ortega and had a tight angle.
03:31But it was always going to be difficult to score from such an acute angle as he found the side netting.
03:35And I'm just trying to think really of any other opportunities for Villa.
03:38I don't think they had them.
03:39Man City, I think possession in the first half changed hands a bit more than they did in the second.
03:43As Man City really dug into a rhythm, did very well to keep Morgan Rodgers quiet, actually.
03:49I think that's important that Aston Villa, they play best when Rodgers is on song and he wasn't tonight.
03:55But that's kind of the rest of my thoughts here from the Etihad.
03:58Unfortunately, a painful result for Aston Villa.
04:00They were one point behind Man City before tonight.
04:03They're now four points behind.
04:04It's one team you feel that they won't be able to catch up now.
04:07So you need someone like a Nottingham Forest or a Chelsea or a Newcastle United to fall away if Villa are going to get into the Champions League.
04:15But there is a game at the weekend, a massive one at Wembley Stadium, a different competition.
04:19An FA Cup semi-final to look forward to against Crystal Palace.
04:22I'll see you there.
04:23Make sure to check out my coverage of tonight's game and the game at Wembley on birminghamworld.uk.