PEP HITS THE WALL
EVERY KICK, EVERY GOAL, EVERY GAME Guardiola five without a win after Stones stinker
PEP GUARDIOLA has gone five games without a win before.
That time it turned out to be a minor drought. Manchester City fans will be hoping history repeats itself and this is just a brief famine before a feast of silverware.
Barcelona failed to win in five under Guardiola in 2008-09 when he had just entered the management world.
Things got better very soon, though, as they ended the season with the treble of La Liga and Spanish Cup and the Champions League crown.
But City right now don’t look anywhere near a team that will do something similar any time soon.
It had looked like they could win it all when they burst out of the blocks at the start of the season under their new boss.
But a 10-game winning run came to an end with a draw at Celtic in the Champions League before defeat by Tottenham and a point against Everton followed in the Premier League.
Barcelona then hammered them in Europe last week to really give them a reality check. The mistakes in the Nou Camp were almost forgivable due to the class of Lionel Messi and the idiocy of keeper Claudio Bravo getting himself sent off.
But if City are to dominate domestically and in Europe, they will have to rid themselves of the kind of silly blunders they made yesterday. There were plenty against Saints, in particular from error-prone John Stones.
His misplaced pass to Vincent Kompany, who was making his first start in a month, gave Southampton winger Nathan Redmond the chance to round Bravo in the 27th minute to score for the second game running.
Flat
Stones would have been wiser to clear his lines but he thought he had made immediate amends when he turned in a Kevin De Bruyne free-kick only for it to be ruled out for offside with Sergio Aguero having tried to get a touch on the ball before it reached the defender.
City were flat and so was the atmosphere inside the Etihad Stadium as they chased from
behind for the fifth game in a row. And, after the Blues failed to hit the target for the first time in the opening half this season, the crowd booed them off.
De Bruyne was hooked at the break and his replacement Kelechi Iheanacho equalised with City’s first shot on target.
Fernandinho launched the ball out to Leroy Sane and his cross was turned in first time by the striker for his 11th Premier League goal in 17 attempts on target.
Ilkay Gundogan gave Fraser Forster his first save before David Silva also tested the keeper.
Charlie Austin could have won it for Saints but he lashed a shot at Bravo rather than placing it into a corner.
Aguero – after being dropped at Barcelona – did little for most of the afternoon and when he got a sniff smashed it across goal rather than finding the target.
Five games without a win was not what City’s owners expected from Guardiola but a win on Wednesday at Manchester United in the EFL Cup would be a suitable way to stop the rot.