I didn’t read too much into Man City’s previous four defeats which were all away from home and partly down to fielding weakened teams or not taking their chances.
But Saturday night’s hammering at the Etihad by Tottenham is a massive wake-up call that Pep Guardiola has to take very seriously.
Even though City are becoming too reliant on Erling Haaland for scoring goals, their single biggest concern is how easy Spurs found them to play against.
When Pep is in his pomp, even his technical wizards like David Silva worked hard to shut down opponents. They were the best pressing team with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, opponents couldn’t get out against them.
I didn’t see any of that on Saturday. You didn’t need to be a genius to work out Rodri was going to be a huge miss but they’ve deteriorated defensively more than anyone would have forecast.
Spurs over-ran and outplayed City with ease. Some of City’s play was lazy. The way Ilkay Gundogan let James Maddison run off him to score was basic dereliction of duty and he wasn’t the only guilty one.
There are two factors. Firstly, City may collectively be in the comfort zone having won so much for so long. Secondly, the physicality looks off.
Kyle Walker is a good example. His game relies on being athletic and while it’s admirable he came back early from injury because the team needed him, he’s not at his usual levels.
I think Guardiola will want to work on how his team play without the ball ahead of next Sunday’s big game at Liverpool. No matter your creativity, you can’t survive at this level unless the ‘dirty’ side of the game, the tracking back and limiting space, is organised and adhered to.
You can see the City boss searching for answers. He’s been changing his defensive systems regularly. Even at half-time on Saturday he switched by moving Rico Lewis inside into central midfield and went to a 4-3-3 rather than a 4-4-1-1.
It’s also a concern that Haaland accounts for half the team’s goals. It’s time for others to step up. I’m more confident that Guardiola will be able to fix the attacking half of the conundrum provided Kevin De Bruyne gets up to speed. I was encouraged by how sharp the Belgian looked when he came on against Spurs.
A quick word about Tottenham’s James Maddison, when he plays like that there is no better English playmaker in the league. It’s up to him to maintain those standards.
But for City, famed for their runs in the second half of the season, this is a truly critical time. If Liverpool beat Southampton on Sunday and City next weekend, they will be 11 points ahead in the table. Even the great Catalan escapologist wouldn’t be able to come back from that.