'Are you happy?' - Maresca has City message after Villa defeat

Maresca was happy with plenty of things that he saw in the 90 minutes, not least how well his team did to limit Villa's ability to play on the counter-attack. However, he was left rueing the fact that the home team took full advantage of the chances that they created while City were wayward in the final third despite getting there much more frequently.

"I think we deserved more from the game, from the amount of chances that we created and for the chances that we conceded," said Maresca. "We lost because probably we haven't been clinical enough in the box. Sometimes when you concede the first goal was mistake, the second goal came from transition. In 45 [minutes] it is difficult to avoid that every time, but we learn from the game and we move on and try to improve.

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To get it, it's a simple one-two punch.

"You can always do something better but for me when you plan a game, especially against this team, you know you are going to concede some transitions because they play for that, they wait for that but if before the game you say you are going to concede one transition in 45 minutes, are you happy?

"I would say I will be happy. In the second half we conceded one and they score. They were clinical in that moment and we are going to try to learn from that and move on. Sometimes you have to be more clinical but also more precise with the last pass, more accurate. We're going to learn from that."

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