Pep Guardiola is naively overlooking one Manchester City weakness that’s already cost his side five points as their Premier League title hopes fade..
The ‘Man City are back’ claims that followed their 4-0 opening weekend hammering of Wolves have proven premature as Guardiola’s side have stuttered in recent months.
There have been strong wins against Manchester United and Napoli, while Erling Haaland might be better than ever and Phil Foden has returned to form, but City have been weighed down by inconsistency, having given points away against Tottenham Hotspur, Brighton, Arsenal and AS Monaco.
Last time out, Man City had bundles of chances against Monaco, but they could not put their opponents away and were punished as Eric Dier’s late penalty earned the Ligue Un outfit a 2-2 draw.
Haaland has carried Man City on his back this season, but he has been let down by his teammates, with the striker admitting after the stalemate vs Monaco that they have not been “good enough”.
“It’s not good enough,” Haaland told BBC Match of the Day.
He added: “Of course I don’t feel good we didn’t win. We do something unnecessarily in the second half and we don’t think we played good enough. We don’t deserve to win.
“We need more energy. We need to get at them more as we did in the first half and dominated much more. In the second half they took the lead much more and I don’t think it is good enough.
“Every Champions League game is tough, look at last year when we went out. There are not many teams who have won their first two games.”
Man City were somewhat unfortunate to fall victim to a harsh penalty against Monaco, but this highlighted a major flaw in Guardiola’s side.
Guardiola said post-match that he has “many concerns” but Man City conceding late in halves is “not one”, though he perhaps should steer clear of complaining about “Spanish referees” to focus on fixing this problem.
This is because Man City have now lost five points via goals conceded in the final five minutes of a half (two vs Monaco, two vs Arsenal and one vs Brighton).
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Had Man City remained switched on to close out the games vs Arsenal and Brighton, they would be level with the Gunners in second and also breathing down the necks of Liverpool.
Instead, they already risk being cut adrift from their two Premier League title rivals, with their disappointing clean sheet record another factor against them reclaiming their crown this season.