Having previously established a commanding lead at the top of the Premier League table, by the time Manchester City face Everton next weekend they could find the gap between themselves and closest challengers Liverpool trimmed to a mere three points.
Losing 3-2 to Tottenham means that Pep Guardiola’s side are now entering unchartered waters. Under Guardiola City have both run away with titles and overcome large deficits to clinch victory but never have they surrendered a seemingly unassailable lead.
So, is it time to panic?
Liverpool may now be breathing down City’s necks after a Harry Kane-inspired Spurs exploited a shambolic defensive display by the Blues but with two-and-a-half months of the season remaining, it might be a bit too soon to start asking for divine intervention.
Spurs were always going to be a tricky opponent. City’s opening-day loss in north London was put down to the absence of important players and a lack of match fitness but in reality, Spurs have had City’s number for a good few years now.
City have won only one of their last six games against Spurs, despite the fact that the London club have had four different managers during that period. Regardless of who has been sat in the dugout, Spurs have repeatedly undone City with a combination of deep, compact defending and rapid counter-attacks, a concoction that is effectively City’s kryptonite.
So if City and Pep knew how Spurs would approach Saturday’s meeting, why didn’t they do anything about it? Simply put, Spurs have a squad perfectly constructed to exploit City’s weaknesses. Few strikers in world football, never mind the Premier League, are as lethal in the penalty area and adept at dropping deep to get involved in build-up play as Kane is.
(Image: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
In Son Heung-min, Spurs have one of the fastest players in the league, working with Kane to form a devastating duo. No partnership in Premier League history has combined to score more than the 36 goals they have.
Over the last few years, Spurs have had a succession of managers who have relished facing City with a military-level organisation in defence. Antonio Conte is the best of the lot.
This result should be viewed with a bit of perspective; while it is not in isolation, too many City players had an off day against a team perfectly equipped to exploit that.
Pep does not need to make wholesale changes in response but there are some things that may need tweaking.
Individual defensive errors aside, City struggled to keep the ball. City like to play balls down the left-hand channel but Spurs made that area congested and so were able to easily intercept City’s through balls. As Pep explained last season, keeping possession of the ball is City’s primary defensive strategy.
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“The reason why [our defensive record is so good] is because 67 per cent of the time we have the ball,” he said. “If you have the ball as much as possible then the opponent does not have the ball.
“When you play 60 metres away from your goal then controlling the counter-attack is important. Sometimes it is not possible because of the opposition players, but if you use the ball well and do not make mistakes, you will concede few.”
Unfortunately for City, on Saturday they did not use the ball well and made too many mistakes, thus allowing Spurs plenty of opportunities to counter-attack.
To avoid another game like this before the end of the season, City need to find a way of keeping the ball when coming up against low-block defences. Conceding an early goal meant that City quickly started trying to force things and giving the ball away cheaply. That can’t happen again.
Admittedly situations such as those do not occur very often – City would not have gone 15 league matches unbeaten if they did – but a report by the Daily Telegraph suggests that there is something else that could be tweaked.
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City’s players reportedly had a frank discussion in the changing room after the defeat. They concluded that their biggest problem was not knowing whether to follow Kane when he dropped back into a No.10 position.
Given the fact that City’s defenders witness false-nine play on a daily basis in training, if true then it is alarming that they could not collectively decide how to handle Kane.
Clearly that is something that Guardiola will have to address in training, preferably before they face false-nine deploying Liverpool in April.
Do you think that Pep Guardiola needs to change anything? Follow our City Is Ours writer Alex Brotherton on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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