Guardiola: I have to help struggling stars

PEP Guardiola will spend the next few days trying to work out how to get his City team firing again.

For the second game in a row, the Premier League champions eased into a lead only to be quickly pegged back and eventually suffer defeat.

It is a rare thing for an attack as good as City’s to be outgunned, but with recent injuries to Kevin de Bruyne, Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus and David Silva, the manager suggested that his team are struggling to get into their usual rhythm.

“Maybe we don’t create many chances but sometimes it is not easy to create a lot with players coming back from injury,” he said.

“They need time and minutes in their legs. Apart from the five or ten minutes at the end of the first half when we conceded two or three chances in a row – because sometimes it happens – the rest was no big issue.

“We are going to miss a little bit of the final pass, the final assist, the last shot and teams are punishing us: [Andros] Townsend, today it was another fantastic goal.

“We can avoid the corner, the second ball but it’s football. It’s happened, accept the reality. We have to leave that and we have to try to win again for our mood, our confidence, for our desire.”

Of more concern than the nature of the goals against has been the lack of reaction to conceding. De Bruyne’s consolation against Crystal Palace was a rare effort on goal and the visitors at the King Power Stadium mustered only one shot on target in the second half as they chased first a winner and then an equaliser.

If last year’s Herculean efforts mean Guardiola will not doubt his players, he admits that they need something to change in their minds in order to return to winning ways. “Good results make miracles in the mind,” he added. “All games are about the mind. We are the same, we practise little details as we did last season and in our three years together. Now there will be doubts. “What we have to do is change the dynamic to winning games because we make a good performance. “It doesn’t matter where we finish, the joy and pleasure of how many things they did in the recent past means I will never doubt those guys. “I have to reflect, think about what the team needs and how to help them. That is what I am concerned about in the next few days.”

What we have to do is change the dynamic to winning games because we make a good performance Pep Guardiola