Erling Haaland criticised himself after Manchester City fell to another chastening defeat on Saturday but said the players are still backing manager Pep Guardiola.

City looked devoid of confidence, ideas and fight in a 2-1 loss to Aston Villa which deepened their surprising crisis.

The reigning four-time Premier League champions have been beaten in six of their last eight league games and — nine points behind leaders Liverpool having played two games more — a title defence looks a huge ask.

Star striker Haaland, while still level with Mohamed Salah at the top of the goalscoring charts, has only scored three league goals since the start of October and said he has to improve to help the team.

“First, I’m looking at myself,” Haaland, 24, told TNT sports. “I haven’t been doing things good enough, I haven’t been scoring my chances. I have to do better, I haven’t been good enough.

“Of course, our confidence is not the best. We know how important confidence is and you can see that it affects every human being. That is how it is, we have to continue and stay positive even though it is difficult.”

The latest defeat increased the pressure on manager Guardiola but Haaland insisted the team are behind him.

“He won the Premier League six times in seven years, so we will never forget that,” Haaland added.

“He will find the solutions. He has been doing that every single year. We still believe in him, we have to work harder than ever right now.”

Guardiola, meanwhile, maintained he has “incredible trust” the results will come for City, who were dispatched by goals from Jhon Durán and Morgan Rogers before Phil Foden‘s late consolation.

“We have to think positive and I have incredible trust in the guys,” Guardiola stated. “Some of them have incredible pride and desire to do it. We have to find a way, step by step, sooner or later to find a way back.”

The manager gave his players two days off this week to clear their heads and admitted the team’s poor performance is “now all in our minds.”

While they painted a picture of collective frustration on Saturday at Villa Park, Guardiola said he believes they will get their confidence back “step-by-step.”

“We have nice personalities in the team and sooner or later we are going to find it,” he said.

Villa climbed over Guardiola’s team into fifth in the table, while City are sixth.

They have dropped 24 points in the league before even reaching the halfway point of the season. They dropped 23 points in total last season.