Manchester City fell to a fifth straight defeat on Saturday against Tottenham Hotspur – but Gary Neville had praise for Pep Guardiola.
Manchester City are now eight points behind Liverpool in the Premier League title race, with the Reds beating Southampton 3-2 on Sunday.
City were thrashed 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium by Spurs, with the defence and midfield all at sea once again.
The likes of James Maddison, Heung-min Son and Dejan Kulusevski had a field day, and the team without Rodri was once again exposed.
It really was a chastening defeat, and there were many empty seats as the game was petering out. Guardiola said after the game his side are ‘fragile defensively’, and concerns are growing.
He will have been dismayed at what he saw, but Gary Neville praised the Manchester City manager after seeing him do one thing as the final whistle went.
Gary Neville applauds the way Pep Guardiola reacted to Man City defeat to Tottenham
This would have been a painful one for Guardiola.
He has never lost five games in a row before, and the Spaniard probably wanted to walk straight down the tunnel as the final whistle blew on Saturday.
But despite the embarrassing result, he didn’t do that, instead embracing several of his players and the fans.
Gary Neville admired that, as he said on the Gary Neville podcast: “I’m looking at this season now and thinking that Pep Guardiola… he obviously fancies it. He’s up for the fight.
“To be fair to him at the end of the game today he didn’t just sulk and go down the tunnel. He went out there onto the pitch. He fronted it. He went and shook his players’ hands, he hugged a few of them.
“And that’s what I would expect from a champion manager. You’ve got to suck on the lemons sometimes, and it’s not pleasant. We used to hate losing, it was a crisis when we lost.”
Man City need January transfer window
The struggles at Man City could genuinely be set to continue, because this team now looks to be in desperate need of reinforcements.
The loss of Rodri is proving to be colossal, and teams are just finding it so easy to play against City at the moment.
| Position | Team | Played MP | Won W | Drawn D | Lost L | For GF | Against GA | Diff GD | Points Pts |
| 1 |  LiverpoolLiverpool | 12 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 21 | 6 | 15 | 29 |
| 2 |  Man CityManchester City | 12 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 22 | 17 | 5 | 23 |
| 3 |  ChelseaChelsea | 12 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 23 | 14 | 9 | 22 |
| 4 |  ArsenalArsenal | 12 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 21 | 12 | 9 | 22 |
| 5 |  BrightonBrighton | 12 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 21 | 16 | 5 | 22 |
| 6 |  TottenhamTottenham | 12 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 27 | 13 | 14 | 19 |
There are too many players who aren’t performing, but Guardiola simply doesn’t have competition for these under-performers. Or he has players he doesn’t fully trust, such as youngsters James McAtee and Nico O’Reilly.
City’s focus should be to try and keep within touching distance of Liverpool by the time January rolls around.
