Brighton 2 Manchester City 1: Creaky defence, Guardiola’s worst run, is title slipping?

Brighton & Hove Albion stunned Manchester City to move fourth in the Premier League after a comeback win at the Amex Stadium.

Erling Haaland put Pep Guardiola’s side ahead in the first and it looked like the champions would arrest their three-game losing streak.

However, the home side came back into the match in the second half and strikes from Joao Pedro and substitute Matt O’Riley sealed an incredible turnaround. City are two points behind Liverpool, who face Aston Villa tonight in their game in hand.

Here, Sam Lee breaks down the key talking points of City’s game.

Creaking defence

One of the things about City’s treble-winning team — possibly the biggest thing — was that when the defence were caught out, they could rely on their back four to bail them out with some reliable one-against-one defending.

There are question marks over Kyle Walker after his somewhat understandable struggles against Bournemouth last weekend while barely fit and another shaky second-half performance here, but you could not say that he or the rest did not have the stomach for the fight or were making contact errors.

The Brighton equaliser probably sums up where they are: the City players threw themselves at the ball to keep it out, but things went wrong anyway, with the ball landing nicely for Pedro. The second goal just looked too easy, despite their efforts.

There is a defensive injury crisis, with Nathan Ake not fit enough to play despite being on the bench — something that is possibly also the case for Manuel Akanji. It left 19-year-old Jahmai Simpson-Pusey (above, right) to make his second start in a week alongside Josko Gvardiol. They did their jobs very well, but Brighton were the better side in the second half and it always looked like they would score.

Guardiola’s low point

This is Guardiola’s worst run as a manager — four defeats in a row is quite something. City have some mitigation there: going out of the Carabao Cup against Tottenham Hotspur did not faze them and, while Guardiola admitted Bournemouth got the better of his side, they were largely good against Sporting Lisbon, but were raided on the counter-attack.

Against Brighton, they were very good in the first half once again and probably should have been two or three goals up by the break. The issue is that it has got to the stage where, despite there being positives that should bode well for the long-term — the players are still trying, they are still capable of playing well — those positives are pretty easily negated because City are just so frail at the moment and are not taking their chances.

1 – Pep Guardiola has lost four games in a row in all competitions for the very first time in his managerial career, while Manchester City have lost four straight games for the first time since August 2006, when Stuart Pearce was manager of the club. Unthinkable. pic.twitter.com/yAnz6ct8dn

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 9, 2024

Guardiola said this is similar to his first season in charge where his team were poor in both boxes, but the problem this time is they are not always that good in the middle either. There were more than flashes of their best form in the first half, and that will hearten Guardiola to some extent during the international break, but even had they held on to a victory or even a point here, they have Tottenham and Liverpool after the break. That does not sound good at all.

Could City finally be beaten to the title?

Are we falling into the same old trap here or might it actually be time, as early as it is, to think that City may not have enough to turn things around this season?

The fact that two of their defeats have not been in the Premier League does mean their points deficit is nowhere near enough to rule them out of the race, especially in early November, but the concern is that they have a lot of injuries. Jeremy Doku has seemingly picked up another problem and Akanji is hanging on. Kevin De Bruyne is coming back, which is obviously a big plus, but the defence is patched up and Ballon d’Or winner Rodri is not in contention this season.

Rodri has torn his anterior cruciate ligament (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

The question, most likely, is how long can they hang on until the injury situation starts to clear up and can they fight to ensure they are at least in a position in January, say, to go on one of their famous runs, which is what they managed to do last season when they struggled before Christmas. They usually confound their critics, even in more difficult situations than this (after the 2022 World Cup, there was a fair bit of dressing-room unrest) but this is certainly a low point. If they win the title this year it will feel like they will never lose one ever again.

What did Pep Guardiola say?

We will bring you this after he has spoken at the post-match press conference.

What next for Manchester City?

Saturday, November 23: Tottenham Hotspur (H), Premier League, 5.30pm GMT, 12.30pm ET

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