Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says his players are suffering from their unprecedented run of five consecutive defeats, but he is confident they will turn things around.
The 4-0 home defeat to Tottenham was a crushing blow just days after Guardiola signed a new two-year contract with the club.
It was City’s heaviest defeat at home since 2003 and the first time they have lost five games in a row since 2006, before Sheikh Mansour began his trophy-laden spell as owner.
Guardiola had never before lost five consecutive games in his entire coaching career.
It also leaves City eight points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool following the Reds’ 3-2 win at Southampton on Sunday.
“I trust these players more than ever,” Guardiola said.
“I have never seen a player in my life who wants to perform badly or give a bad performance in front of the fans or the club. Nobody wants that.
“When they are in front of 60,000 people they want to perform well. But, for many reasons, it hurts.”
Guardiola has promised to find a solution to City’s problems, but with a crucial trip to Liverpool next weekend following Tuesday’s Champions League match against Dutch side Feyenoord, it is unclear how he will achieve this.
The twin absences of Ballon d’Or winner Rodri and Croatian midfielder Mateo Kovacic mean City’s injury-hit defense has been exposed to too many attacks.
On Saturday, Tottenham came in with a game plan to get the ball to Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski as quickly as possible in an effort to isolate City’s full-backs and put central positions under pressure.
Kulusevski said he was looking forward to the challenge more than any other match this season and that the result represented “the best result of my career.”
For City, the experience was more depressing.
“At the moment we are not solid enough, that is the truth,” Guardiola added.
“I won’t say a word that my timing isn’t good, but I’ve been there as a football player. They don’t, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter.’ You want to do well but you have doubts.”
Consolation for Guardiola comes from the belief that his team is playing well for long periods within matches.
Against Tottenham, he felt the result would have been very different if Erling Haaland had taken one of the first two opportunities presented to him.
He also hopes that John Stones, who was limited to 45 minutes at the weekend, will be fitter for the trip to Liverpool and that both Manuel Akanji and Nathan Ake will be fitter to allow some options in central defence, which will in turn will give Kyle Walker and Josko Gvardiol more confidence after personally disappointing performances against Spurs.
It’s fair to assume that someone as ruthless and driven as Guardiola won’t pay lip service to his overall assessment of the situation.
“When we started losing, I told people, ‘We have to find a way,'” he said. “That is my duty.
“Sometimes you don’t have it for many reasons, so which players at our disposal are better than the others? Let’s try to do it with them.”
