Erling Haaland took the blame for Manchester City's dismal form after scoring once in his last six Premier League games.
Haaland, still the division's top scorer, was an outsider in City's ninth defeat in 12 games against Aston Villa.
And the Norwegian claimed his performances were not up to par as the defending champions fell deeper into crisis.
“It obviously affects us all,” Haaland said. 'It affects me. I haven't been good enough and haven't performed for City this season. I have to step up and work harder, I just have to get better. It's just not good enough. I will do everything I can to do better.'
'We can't win games anymore, we can't control games like we used to. We used to control matches a lot more.
'In the decisive moments I fail to score, in the decisive moments we concede goals. The margins are small and that's the way it is, I will do everything I can to turn this around.'
City created few chances at Villa Park and Haaland did not register a shot on target, but Pep Guardiola strongly disagreed with his star striker's assessment of his form.
“Without him he would be even worse, but I want players to be like that,” Guardiola added. 'It's the only chance we have to get better.
“I don't agree with Erling because he tried and he has to get the right balls in the right places, but now we recover and fight for the next one.”
Guardiola praised his team's first-half performance before John Stones told him he had suffered another foot injury that would keep him out for six games. Kyle Walker replaced Stones, which led to City adjusting their line-up.
“It wasn't good in the second half,” Guardiola added. 'We dropped, perhaps because I changed the pressure to match the quality of our captain, and we struggled to really do well what we had done in the first half.
'The first half was better than we played against (Manchester) United, the second was not good enough, we lost again. “Recover, stay positive, thank you to some of the players for the pride they showed on the pitch today and for wanting to help with the difficulties.”
Morgan Rogers, who scored the decisive second goal against his former club, still believes he still has a level to reach.
“Sometimes I'll do the hard part and then struggle to find that bit of quality and keep that composure,” Rogers said. 'This season I have wasted a few chances that I would have liked to score.'
Unai Emery added: “In the second half their confidence dropped and ours increased. It was fantastic how the players responded to everything we had worked on before.
'In the first half we defended too low and had to get into a good position to prevent them from dominating the ball. We defended well throughout the game, but in the second half we played with more personality than in the first.'
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