Truly inept in defence, City look like a side that have Real issues

IF ONLY Pep Guardiola could defend as well as Manchester City’s lawyers.

The Etihad legal eagles always thought they had a watertight case to take to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and they were proved right.

But there is nothing watertight about a City team that has now blundered its way out of the FA Cup.

This hurt Guardiola and, even more worrying for him, will be one conclusion from which there is no hiding.

If this decent, but limited Arsenal team can take advantage of City’s vulnerability, what are the cream of Europe going to do?

Pundits and punters seem to find Manchester City’s nine Premier League losses something of a mystery. But it really is no head-scratcher. It is simple.

For an elite team, their defending can be, too often, truly inept.

They will not reclaim their Premier League title next season with this defence.

They will not win this season’s Champions League with this defence.

They might not even get past Real Madrid with this defence, despite the home advantage and the 2-1 start heading into the second leg.

For a squad assembled at such expense, their shortcomings at the back verge on the bizarre.

Across the line, there are issues.

Benjamin Mendy was given the nod here, but neither he nor Oleksandr Zinchenko is a bona fide left-back. In fact, you could not make a bona fide left-back using both of them.

Alongside Aymeric Laporte and up against Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, Eric Garcia looked like the teenage rookie he is.

And Kyle Walker’s susceptibility is not lessening with age.

It was a nice assist from Nicolas Pepe and a very accomplished, long build-up, but Walker was dozing when Aubameyang stole in to put Arsenal ahead.

And Aubameyang again timed his run to perfection when he doubled the lead in the second half, but, again, City’s defence was unforgivably lax.

Often, of course, City have precious little defending to do and even if they do concede, have the attacking potency to more than compensate for it. But Guardiola’s defensive blind spot has become a major issue.

Even if you prefer to give Arsenal credit for their wellworked goals rather than apportion blame to City, there were plenty more mistakes from the vanquished holders.

Every team can suffer defensive aberrations, Arsenal benefiting from a rare Liverpool one in midweek.

That’s the thing, though. Liverpool ricks are rare, City’s come with alarming regularity.

To be fair, they were not up to their usual standards throughout this strange occasion.

Project Restart has shown football without fans is something, but the FA Cup without fans?

There is definitely a case for that being nothing, or at least