Former Manchester City star Gael Glichy believes Sunday's blockbuster trip to Liverpool has come at the 'perfect' time for Pep Guardiola's men, despite their collapse against Feyenoord.
City entered Tuesday's Champions League tie having lost five successive matches, but took a commanding 3-0 lead thanks to a double from Erling Haaland and Ilkay Gundogan's strike. But the hosts fell apart in the final 15 minutes to leave the Etihad Stadium stunned.
First Anis Hadj Moussa took advantage of a mistake by Josko Gvardiol to score Feyenoord's first goal, before substitute Santiago Gimenez chested in their second with eight minutes remaining.
They completed their stunning comeback when David Hancko pounced in the 89th minute. Guardiola's side have now failed to win in their last six games, but Clichy is hopeful that miserable run can end at the Premier League leaders.
"It is not a crisis but we are talking about a huge mountain to climb. Liverpool is probably the perfect game for City to go again. They go to Anfield and they have to be 100 per cent focused," he told Amazon Prime.
"Today they did not take the chances to kill the game. You have to take chances. You can't go to Liverpool feeling sorry for yourself and you have to take positives going into that. I'm lost for words.
"From a very comfortable game, 3-0 up, you find yourself in a situation where it feels like a defeat. Two of the three goals are given by City with mistakes you can actually avoid. The worrying part is you cannot keep continuing making individual mistakes.
"You can play as good as you want but if you're players are failing individually then things like tonight can happen. This is what we've seen over the last five, six games now."
As well as slipped back behind Liverpool in the title race, as it stands City would need a play-off round to reach the Last 16 of the Champions League. And Guardiola worryingly admitted his team have developed a 'fragility' in recent outings.
"A lot of games lately we are fragile and of course we need a victory, and the game was good for the confidence. We were playing at a good level, and for the first time something happened there are problems," he told Amazon Prime.
"I don't know if it's mental, it's a question of technique. The first goal cannot happen and the second as well, so that's why after that... we are desperate to win, desperate to do well. We did well but we don't win games.
"Right now it's not ready to think about [the remaining Champions League games]. We have to recover for the next games, just think about what's going to happen in the future, what you have to do, and we are not able to win a game like today it's difficult to do it."