{"id":500036,"date":"2026-01-07T23:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/500036\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T23:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:40:10","slug":"man-city-player-ratings-vs-brighton-with-two-5-10s-as-phil-foden-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/500036\/","title":{"rendered":"Man City player ratings vs Brighton with two 5\/10s as Phil Foden struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester City struggled to a 1-1 draw with Brighton in the Premier League to drop points for the third game in a row\"ManchesterManchester City could not beat Brighton<\/p>\n

Manchester City frustrations boiled over as they dropped points for the third time in seven days. Pep Guardiola’s side, missing nine first-team players through injury and unavailability, got themselves in front in a bad-tempered game when Erling Haaland slotted home a first-half penalty.<\/p>\n

Bernardo Silva missed a golden chance to add to their lead though and Brighton made them pay as Kaoru Mitoma arrowed home an equaliser. Haaland had a header cleared off the line and a shot from close range saved in a frantic finale but City did not have enough to go back in front.<\/p>\n

Guardiola had to be dragged into shaking Fabian Hurzeler’s hand at full-time but away from the squabbling City have more to worry about. Five points behind Arsenal having played a game more, City have lost all momentum and are fighting to stay in the title race. Here are the player ratings from the Manchester Evening News.<\/p>\n

Donnarumma: <\/strong>A few scary moments but also some decent saves when he was left exposed by the defence. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nunes: <\/strong>Ran out of steam in the second half and it was nearly a costly error for the ball to drop over his head and into Mitoma’s path. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Khusanov: <\/strong>His slide tackles are about as telegraphed as Nicolas Otamendi’s but his pace was useful to keep Brighton quiet. 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alleyne: <\/strong>Looked confident on debut with his new teammates and comfortable bringing the ball up the pitch. 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ake: <\/strong>Brighton looked to beat him in a foot race and did on occasion, although he wasn’t troubled too much. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gonzalez: <\/strong>Back in the team after his injury at Sunderland but he did not look fresh and Rodri was ready to replace him for a long time before he actually did. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Silva: <\/strong>A glaring miss just after half-time that would have made the game comfortable for City, and didn’t produce enough in attack. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Foden: <\/strong>Looked like a man in need of a rest, struggling to get his legs to carry out what his brain wanted them to do. 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reijnders: <\/strong>Didn’t influence the game enough, unable to keep or carry the ball for any length of time. 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doku: <\/strong>City’s freshest attacker. He probably should have done more with the ball he had but he did win the penalty. 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haaland: <\/strong>Scored the penalty and did well in his physical battles but he should have scored when teed up late on. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Substitutes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rodri (for Haaland, 64) <\/strong>Couldn’t drive the game like he wanted to. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cherki (for Foden, 73) <\/strong>Came on and instantly made an impact. 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

O’Reilly (for Ake, 73) <\/strong>Kept City solid at the back. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lewis (for Nunes, 73) <\/strong>Some decent balls forward. 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not used: <\/strong>Trafford, Mfuni, R.Heskey, McAidoo, Mukasa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester City struggled to a 1-1 draw with Brighton in the Premier League to drop points for the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":500037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[17489,1835,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-500036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-manchester-city-fc","9":"tag-phil-foden","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115856462528096574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}