Manchester City suffer fifth consecutive defeat

Manchester City’s losing streak stretched to five games on Saturday as Tottenham Hotspur stunned the Premier League champions with a 4-0 victory at the Etihad Stadium.

On his 28th birthday, James Maddison scored twice in the first 20 minutes as Ange Postecoglou’s visitors caught out their hosts on the counter-attack.

City dominated possession but struggled to find a killer pass, and their hopes of a second-half fightback were dashed when Pedro Porro – who spent three years as a City player between 2019 and 2022 – capped another lightning break.

Erling Haaland clipped the crossbar but that was as close as City came to making it competitive, with Brennan Johnson completing the rout as the worst run of Pep Guardiola’s managerial career continued.

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Second-placed City could now find themselves eight points adrift of the summit after Liverpool’s trip to Southampton on Sunday, while Spurs climbed to sixth, four points further back.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live after the defeat, Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, admitted his team is defensively fragile at the moment.

He said: “In this moment we are fragile defensively. We started really well as normal but we could not score and then after that we conceded. After that we conceded some more which is difficult for our emotions right now.

“In eight years we have never lived this kind of situation. Now we have to live it and break it by winning the next games, especially the next one. Now we see things in one way, maybe in a few weeks we see it differently.”