Luke Ayling gave his thoughts to the media after his side were defeated at home by top of the league Manchester City.

The title chasers were clinical in front of goal on Saturday evening and ran out comfortable winners on the scoreline, but that didn’t tell the whole story of the game.

Ayling felt his team played well in the match and had chances of their own, but he also explained his disappointment at the way the goals were conceded, specifically the first two for the visitors.

He said: “I know it might seem a bit funny coming in and saying it, but I thought we did really well for long spells of the game, we had a clear game-plan and I think we stuck to it and did well at it.

“It felt like our press was really good and we were forcing them into doing some things they don’t usually do in games, so we were happy with that.

“We stuck to the game plan, we stayed in the game and got a few chances, catching them on the counter. Then the set-play goal is poor from us.

“Set-pieces have been our downfall quite a lot this season, we gave them one from a set-piece and then another one, which is always hard then.

“We still had chances, we still did alright. We went in at half-time positive and thinking we could get something from the game, but it shows the quality they have.”

The Whites now have four matches remaining in the league and the defender knows it is tight at the bottom of the table, but will take confidence from recent performances into the Arsenal game on Sunday.

“We’ve got to score some goals and carve results out,” Ayling explained.

“We’ve been on a great run of form, then we’ve played Man City, a lot of teams have been beaten by them.

“Before that we were unbeaten in five, we picked up 11 points, and we’ve been playing well.

“We can’t just be down from this result, we played well, we were brave on the ball and we can take that into next week.”