Manchester City shouldn’t panic but they are struggling in unfamiliar ways | Jonathan Wilson
Pep Guardiola’s team have lost four in a row. While they have overcome hurdles before the nature of their problems this season present a fresh challenge
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The danger is always of overreacting. We’ve seen Manchester City have a blip at this stage of the season before. But still, defeat to Brighton on Saturday means that, for the first time in his career as a manager, Pep Guardiola has lost four successive games. It would be extremely premature to suggest the empire is crumbling but, equally, for the first time in a long time there is a sense that City’s aura may be beginning to wane.
But first, some context. One defeat was in the Carabao Cup and another was in the Champions League, where City sit 10th in the table; even if they do miss out on the top eight who go through to the last 16 automatically – they have Feyenoord (home), Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain (away) and Club Brugge (home) next – they will surely at the very least be in the play-offs. But two of the recent defeats were in the Premier League, away at Bournemouth and then Brighton, and as a result City sit five points behind Liverpool.
This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition
