Pep Guardiola: I knew Man City’s levels would drop - but I didn’t expect this

Pep Guardiola has admitted his Manchester City side are ‘struggling’ and ‘fragile’ at the moment but backed them to recover from the worst slump of his time at the Etihad.

City fell to a 4-0 home loss against Tottenham Hotspur - the biggest defeat during his period in charge, which subjected the team to a fifth straight loss in all competitions. The thrashing was particularly concerning given City had several players back from injury and were hoping for a positive reaction to the news of Guardiola’s contract extension.

Instead, the champions were battered by Spurs - a side who lost to Ipswich Town last time out. City failed to recover from falling behind in the 13th minute, were too easy to play through and were incapable of converting their chances. While Guardiola was relatively upbeat after the game, he admitted his side are far off the levels that saw them win six titles in the last eight years.

“We struggle a little bit to get back the balls and have an extra action afterwards,” Guardiola said on the Spurs defeat. We created chances we are a bit fragile right now, that is obvious for the fact we struggle today to score goals and after when they arrive they score.

“After we are playing with a little bit of negativity in our thoughts. Football is a sense of mood. When you win a lot this continuity gives us this self-awareness that you can do it and when you lose three games in a row in the Premier League, that situation is always a little bit there. But many things are going to happen and we have to break the results as much as possible because the victories help us to be more positive and confident.

“We have to do it and after eight years here I knew that in the last one or two years that sooner or later that would drop. Now we have that period. We cannot run away, we have to face it.”

Asked why he feels his side are fragile at present, Guardiola replied: “The fragile is the fact that they have a little situation that we are not strong enough due to the injuries we had. That is the reason why.

“Sometimes we lose games from conceding a few times, but now we concede more for many reasons. I would like to tell you it is for one reason but there many. A few details for all the season. I has happened and we have to fix it. The players will come back better and we will do it.”

The defeat means City could fall eight points behind Liverpool tomorrow (Sunday) if Arne Slot’s side manage to beat Southampton. It might be extended further if the Reds beat City next week at Anfield and Guardiola admitted that if his side trail the Merseysiders by 11 points then it would be too big a gap to overturn in the title race.

“In terms of Liverpool winning and winning, it's true. We're not thinking about winning or losing [the title], we are not in the situation to think about what is going to happen at the end of the season. If in the end we don't win it's because we don't deserve it. We won it in the past because we deserved it.

“I would say when you lose three Premier League games in a row, the most wrong thing to say is that we are going to be champions. I know the guys, I know they will be back and if I'm going to doubt about them it is something wrong about me. Maybe I will not be good enough to get back in those situations and we will see but I've been a football player."