Unai Emery insists he sensed a drop in confidence from Manchester City which allowed Aston Villa to claim a third win in four.

He said: "Progressively, the mentality and confidence was increasing and theirs was going down, and it was fantastic how the players responded on the field.

"The first half we didn’t work completely because we were defending so low. In the second half we were getting more in the attacking third, and the consequence is we scored and the confidence increased more. Defensively we did fantastic working 90 minutes.

"Manchester City are a little bit under the confidence they had normally.

"The second half was different, we dominated and we scored. Through those circumstances they were feeling worse than even in the first half."