Manchester City are in the midst of a poor run of form, which was made clear after getting beat 4-1 by Sporting CP in the Champions League.
Prior to that defeat, City were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Tottenham Hotspur before then being handed their first Premier League defeat at the hands of Bournemouth for the first time ever.
Having then made it three consecutive defeats for the first time since 2018 with their loss in Portugal, Pep Guardiola’s side are now preparing for their next Premier League match against Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.
Looking ahead to this game before the November international break, a pundit has pinpointed the main thing Guardiola needs to work on with his side to help them avoid picking up another defeat this weekend.
Steve Nicol pinpoints main thing Man City need to do after Sporting defeat
While reflecting on the Sporting defeat in a recent video uploaded on the ESPN FC YouTube channel, Steve Nicol gave this assessment of what City need to do ahead of the Brighton clash.
He said: “That’s as bad a game as they could wish for coming up in the Premier League.
“I couldn’t help thinking about last week after the Spurs game when at the end of the game they were all still smiling when they got beat
“After this game [against Sporting], they looked completely and utterly demoralised all of them.
“I mean they’re all standing still staring into space and that absolutely is a telltale sign of what’s happening here.
“Because right now regardless of who steps on the field for City, they don’t look as though they know what they’re all about. They certainly don’t know what they’re about defensively.
“If you’re Pep, the only thing he has to do between now and Brighton is figure out how he gets tight defensively and if that means that you go against your principles and you’re not quite as open and as attacking, then you need to do it.”
City have been allergic to clean sheets this season
Out of the 16 matches City have played across the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup, the Blues have conceded 15 goals and kept just five clean sheets.
| Matches Played | Goals Scored | Goals Conceded | Clean Sheets | |
| Premier League | 10 | 21 | 11 | 2 |
| Champions League | 4 | 10 | 1 | 3 |
| Carabao Cup | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
Against Sporting, Ruben Amorim’s side registered nine big chances in total compared to City’s two, which further exposes the defensive frailties the Manchester club have at the moment.
After Tuesday’s disappointing defeat, Bernardo Silva addressed City’s poor form by claiming that they are in a “dark place” at the moment, although Guardiola disagreed with Silva’s verdict.
This makes it easy to see why Nicol thinks making City tighter at the back should be Guardiola’s main objective ahead of the Brighton match.
