City slump to defeat and Champions League peril

It amounts to miserable seven for Pep Guardiola.

- RICHARD JOLLY

The manager who started this season expected to secure his seventh Premier League title has instead now lost seven of his last 10 games. The team who used to top their Champions League group on an annual basis are now 22nd in an expanded pool. There will be no top-eight finish for Manchester City. The worst-case scenario is there will not even be a February play-off. Out of the Premier League title race, they could be out of the Champions League altogether.

Suddenly, City are imperilled, at risk of the ultimate embarrassment of missing out on a top-24 spot. Aims have been downgraded: to sneak into the knockout stage by the back door. “It’s the target, we need one point, three points,” said Guardiola. Which, it is safe to say, was scarcely the likely scenario when City began their campaign top of the Uefa coefficient, joint favourites for the tournament with Real Madrid. But a blip has turned into the deepest of slumps, one that Guardiola has not experienced before. “Of course I question myself,” he said. “I am incredibly honest.” He has a tendency to judge games by performances and claimed: “We played really good.” They still lost.

Juventus were the latest to capitalise on City’s weakness and, in the process, to improve their own fortunes. A glamour game was a bottom-half clash, 22nd against 20th. But Dusan Vlahovic’s header and Weston McKennie’s volley elevated Juve to 14th, above City and Real Madrid. There may be life in the Old Lady, if not necessarily in City’s old dogs.