Megacrisis in City As Sporting CP thrashed Guardiola in Europe
In one week, the 'Citizens' have been eliminated from the League Cup, defeated in the Premier League and thrashed by Sporting CP in Europe. Guardiola: "I don't give up."
Bang, bang, bang. Viktor Gyökeres has scored three goals against Manchester City in Lisbon and Pep Guardiola’s team have now suffered three consecutive defeats. One in each competition, but all in the space of a week. It all started in north London against Tottenham. Manchester City, severely depleted by injuries, could not avoid another early elimination in the Carabao Cup against Spurs (2-1). However, Erling Haaland and Manuel Akanji, who were seen smiling after the final whistle, did not seem to care much.
More worrying was the stumble suffered at home by Andoni Iraola. Another 2-1 after a footballing exhibition by Bournemouth snatched the unbeaten record from Pep Guardiola’s charges in the domestic competition and relegated them to second place in the table. Then, the thrashing suffered at the José Alvalade stadium (4-1) ended up setting off alarm bells for the sky-blue team. A three in a row (bad) for the team from the Etihad Stadium.
“It’s disappointing because we’re in a bit of a dark moment right now. Everything seems to be going wrong. Even when we play well, we don’t capitalize on our chances and we concede too easily. We have to look inward and see what we’re not doing well. We have to improve very quickly, otherwise it will be very difficult to turn around these defeats,” declared Bernardo Silva on TNT Sports after the European match.
Sporting CP, under Ruben Amorim, still ran over Manchester City, even though the Manchester side started off winning in the Portuguese capital. And as the Portuguese player of the citizens also added after the match, “It is football and it is difficult to find reasons for what is happening to us, but I do not remember this team losing three games in a row in seven and a half seasons. Now it seems that this team is going down the wrong path.” The truth is that it did happen, but we have to go back to 2018 to find another run of three consecutive defeats when Manchester City successively lost to Liverpool in two first legs (3-0) and second leg (1-2) matches in the Champions League quarter-finals, and against Manchester United (2-3) in the Premier League.