Manchester City have drawn their past three Premier League home games having led all of them, a damaging and potentially decisive slump in their bid for an unprecedented fourth consecutive title.
Pep Guardiola’s verdict on those performances against Liverpool, Tottenham and Crystal Palace? “Excellent”.
The treble winners are in Saudi Arabia this week to contest the FIFA Club World Cup, meaning a scheduled Premier League home match against Brentford will be rearranged. By the time Guardiola’s men return to domestic action away to Everton on December 27, they could be as low as sixth in the table.
“We have to win games to make it depend on ourselves,” Guardiola said. “It's not the [time] to think about what [Liverpool] do and what would be possible.
“I have the feeling that the last three games we played here where we dropped points we were excellent, but the reality is three points.
“We could not win but the performance was really good. At the end, we were not able to close the games.”
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There may be an element of Guardiola sparing his players a public dressing down following their latest setback. Although he did not expand on the details, defender Manuel Akanji confirmed his manager “wasn’t happy” after the recent 1-0 loss at Aston Villa.
However, there is enough evidence to back up the claim that there isn’t too much wrong with City’s overall play. They absolutely should have won each of the Liverpool, Spurs and Palace games.
Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Roy Hodgson’s side, who have won once in the Premier League since September, felt like by far the most damaging misstep. City were cruising at 2-0 up thanks to goals from Jack Grealish and Rico Lewis heading into the final 15 minutes.
Jean-Philippe Mateta then pulled a goal back amid slack defending and a chaotic passage of play in injury time concluded with the Palace striker being brought down in the area by Phil Foden. Michael Olise did the rest from 12 yards.
City hogged 74% of possession and posted season highs for passes attempted (818) and passes completed (751). Remarkably, every home outfield player created at least one chance during the first half and City racked up 19 shots to Palace’s five.
Their control was not so comprehensive against Liverpool and Spurs, but they still had more possession than their opponents, double the number of shots and a superior expected goals figure. It counted for little after Trent Alexander-Arnold’s 80th-minute strike and Dejan Kulusevski’s injury-time header.
Throw in Gabriel Martinelli’s 86th-minute winner when Arsenal beat the champions at Emirates Stadium and Cole Palmer’s stoppage-time penalty for Chelsea in a berserk 4-4 draw at Stamford Bridge, and conceding late goals is not hard to spot as a surprising and debilitating theme of City’s season.
“I would like to know,” Guardiola said when asked why his team have become so vulnerable during the closing stages of games.
“I always had the feeling how many chances we created and how many the opponent has. This is the balance for me that is important but football is about closing games.
“Don't give away that penalty and the game will be over. If Phil kept the ball in that position or Bernardo kept the ball in that position, the game was over.”
These are the incidents that lurk behind and undermine City’s customary statistical dominance. Foden’s decision to dribble into midfield traffic prior to giving away the penalty was an example of scrambled thinking. The same could be said for Bernardo Silva being dispossessed by Mateta immediately before Foden’s rash foul.
Tired bodies and minds could be a factor. Foden has started 15 of City’s 17 Premier League games this season and appeared in all of them, while the all-action Silva is being repeatedly asked to go to the well across several midfield positions.
Injuries to Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku, along with an apparent lack of trust in new signings Mateo Kovacic and Matheus Nunes that means Ilkay Gundogan has not been effectively replaced, leaves Silva with a lot on his plate.
In defence, there is a jaded look about Kyle Walker and Ruben Dias, who are both short of their best form and missing the reassuring presence of John Stones, who is only recently back from his latest hamstring injury.
The pair's passive response to Marc Guehi’s raking pass to Jeffrey Schlupp for Mateta’s weekend goal would have been unimaginable during the treble run-in. City have kept just five clean sheets in 26 games across all competitions.
Then again, Walker was in and out of the side as City conquered all before them, picked for specific tasks such as shackling Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior before being dropped for the Champions League final against Internazionale. This season the 33-year-old has played every minute of every Premier League game.
“It’s crazy how we’ve ended up drawing this game,” Dias said after the Palace match. “It’s happened to us before. We controlled the whole game. Especially with a penalty – it’s difficult to take. It’s a mistake that’s cost us.
“Football is mistakes and we have to deal with them. We need to improve and do better and not make those mistakes. The mindset is forward and we’ll keep on fighting. It’s not about complacency — the team was there and we performed. It’s tough to not win this game.
“It [Palace’s first goal] was out of nothing. It was a ball in behind. We controlled the whole game; it’s a situation that cannot happen.
“We’re not happy with it at all. We want to improve, to do better and get back to the same level as before.
“We fight for [clean sheets] every game. There are periods like this in football but the one thing that will always stay on top is how resilient you can be and how much you are ready to deal with it."
He added: “Everybody here works for the same thing, which is to win games. Lately, we have been conceding goals but it is football. Whenever a wave like this comes, you’ve just got to keep doing what you believe in.”
The weeks after their Saudi sojourn will go some way to demonstrating whether City and their impressive underlying numbers can surf the wave back into form or be subsumed by their errors.
