Well the wheels came off the bus in spectacular style in the second half, but we march on and take the positives.
It would be very easy to have a knee jerk reaction about this defeat, but if we look at it in the cold light of day it was a game where our weaknesses were exposed at vital moments rather than one where we were steamrollered.
In the first half we competed and deservedly went in level at the break and could perhaps count ourselves unlucky not to be ahead, although in fairness City would have felt the same way.
In the second half we were hit by a sucker punch as we tried to come to terms with a change at half time which exposed the fact that we still need a player or two to add depth.
As we pushed forward in the last ten minutes looking for that goal that would have changed the game with City down to ten men we were caught on the break and this is something that we have to address, it happened too often at Aston Villa and it happened too often against City, we sometimes pour forward in numbers but our back line are not ensuring we have adequate cover.
This was a lesson from Manchester City, they showed us not only how to dig in and win a game, but how to win a game tactically and perhaps most importantly the benefits of having strength in depth.
The main problem though was that we had too many players having off days, Dusan Tadic couldnt get things going, Sadio Mane saw the ball but too often did nothing with it and the end result was that Pelle was isolated and couldn't get into the game.
Its hard enought playing a team like City whenyou have 11 men firing on all cylinders, but when you have perhaps 3 having terrible games, another 3/4 having bad games and only 2 or 3 performing to their abilities its made even harder.
No excuses though, the reason that some were having those off days was the fact that City were working hard to make sure that they did.
So we now have to move on and put this game behind us for what it was, of course its disappointing, but every team has these sort of days and sadly this one was ours, as I said back in the summer, in football it is never about what has just happened but what you do next, we need to now regroup and learn our lessons from this game, Ronald Koeman needs to analyse where we went wrong and how we can put things right.