Bernardo Silva says “everyone needs to do better” at Manchester City.
Last season’s treble winners slipped three points leaders Arsenal at the weekend following a 3-3 draw with Tottenham at the Etihad – City’s third Premier League game without a win.
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Such are City’s, and coach Pep Guardiola’s, high standards, this constitutes a blip and Portugal midfielder Silva says collective improvement is required when they visit fourth-placed Aston Villa tomorrow night.
“If we want to win games, we cannot concede three or four goals every game – sometimes we will score five or six but most of the time we will not be able to so we need to defend well as a team,” he said. “Everyone needs to do better.
“Offensively as well – make better decisions, demand more from ourselves and if we do that we are a very difficult team to stop.
“We need to be prepared because we know how good they [Villa] are this season and how well managed and organised they’ve been. We need to recovery mentally and physically to be prepared for that game.”
City squandered a host of first-half chances against Spurs and were caught out late on when Dejan Kulusevski brought Ange Postecoglou’s men level.
Silva added: “The little details matter at this level, and we need to defend better as a team.
“We need to look at ourselves. We need to also finish and kill the game as we had the chances [vs Spurs]. We created so many chances and were very good in the press but in the end if you don’t score your goals, it will cost you games and cost you points – that’s what has been happening in the last games.”
City will be without suspended duo Rodri and Jack Grealish for the game at Villa Park.
