Manchester City’s crisis deepened on Sunday against arch-rivals Manchester United.
Leading 1-0 entering the final three minutes of normal time, United scored twice late on to hand Pep Guardiola and his team their fifth defeat in the last seven Premier League matches.
After going unbeaten through their first nine games of the Premier League campaign, Man City are now amidst their worst run of form in Guardiola’s esteemed tenure, picking up just four points from the last 21 available.
Facing Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United, City seemed destined for a crucial victory thanks to Josko Gvardiol’s first half header.
But Bruno Fernandes’ 88th minute penalty was followed less than 120 seconds later by a scrappy Amad Diallo goal to send City to a crushing defeat.
The result leaves the reigning champions fifth in the Premier League table, nine points behind leaders Liverpool.
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Speaking on NBC’s post-match coverage of the heated derby, Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe took aim at Manchester City’s mounting problems and repeated errors.
“At 1-0, we’ve seen a Manchester United team that was well-structured, well put together but didn’t look like they had the sharpness to get a goal,” Earle said.
“And from that position, with just minutes left on the clock, they (City) end up losing the game 2-1. Remember Feyenoord in the Champions League? 3-0 up after 75 minutes? Similar situation.
“It just shows you and highlights that when lack of confidence comes into a team, I don’t care how many internationals you have, I don’t care how many championships you’ve won, there’s doubt that comes into your mind.
“The second goal they conceded – and we can talk about Rodri and all of that – but it’s one long ball over the top and the young man Amad gets onto it, puts it towards goal. There’s so many blue shirts back there but they can’t deal with the problem.
“The day started with Ruben Amorim and the big statement he made but the day finishes with Pep Guardiola and the problems Manchester City continues to have.
“I thought today that City would find a way to get a win and kickstart their season. It doesn’t look like they’re going to kickstart the season anytime soon.”
Guardiola’s side lost just three league games all of last season but Sunday’s defeat to United marked their fifth in a nightmare campaign.
Meanwhile, they’ve dropped 10 points so far from winning positions, the same amount they gave away all of last season.
The defeat to United highlighted familiar problems that have been plaguing Guardiola and his team at least since Rodri suffered his season-ending knee injury.
“Just that defensive brittleness that we’ve seen so often, reared its ugly head in the last five minutes of the game,” Mustoe added to Earle’s assessment.
“The Matheus Nunes challenge, the back pass that was awful, and the crazy challenge just blew this game up.
“They were limping towards victory. But as the guys said in commentary, different players playing different positions and they can’t see a game out.
“It looked like it was going to end 1-0, they seemed happy to sit and not really go for the second goal, but they cou;dn’t even do that. Those errors at the end are crazy errors.”
City now have a mountain to climb if they are to reassert themselves in the Premier League title race and fixing their leaky defence will be one of the first orders of business for Guardiola.
They’ve kept just two clean sheets since their opening day victory at Chelsea while conceding two or more goals in six of their last seven league matches. After conceding just 0.89 goals per game last season, that number has shot up to 1.44 this time around as a terrible run shows no signs of stopping.
Next up for City is a difficult trip to Villa Park where they will take on Unai Emery’s Aston Villa, sitting two points and one place behind the beleaguered champions.