Omer Riza spoke to the media at Villa Park after watching his Bluebirds side produce a fine display despite suffering defeat against a UEFA Champions League outfit.
"I was very pleased with the boys." Omer began. "We had a gameplan to try to contain Villa, and stop them from causing us problems.
"We tweaked a few things at half time, and I thought the boys were excellent. They worked really hard out of possession, they showed the levels of concentration and focus which is key to not conceding goals.
"Villa's two goals were little sucker punches that caught us at the end. It was disappointing from our point of view, but it's Aston Villa, they're a strong side.
"We've had a good run in the Cup, and I think it's given us a bit of momentum in the league as well. We'll take that into the league now."
Three-time Champions League winner Marco Asensio scored both goals for Unai Emery's side, with Omer full of pride at how his players performed in front of the 6,000 travelling City fans.
"They've got very good players, and we knew that we'd have to try and deal with them. In general, in possession I thought we showed good composure and we caused them problems on our build from goal kicks. That gave us some structure to be able to play from.
"We had a chance at 0-0; if Yousef [Salech] had got enough on that and it was 0-1, that maybe changes the game a little bit. In general, I'm really pleased with the boys - I can't ask any more of them. Credit to the boys; now we kick on and we look to the league.
"The fans have been brilliant all season, and I'm glad we could give them a little bit of a Cup run. We've tried to give them a good moment today, and hopefully they'll go home pleased."