City frailty exposed as Wolves fire a title blow

Struggled defensively at leftback, and was much more assured and effective when switched to right-back.

One or two little errors, but overall he kept City on the front foot and was desperately trying to pull strings.

Again, very neat and efficient, but just offered very little which was ever going to dismantle Wolves.

Apart from thwacking the bar with a free-kick, his presence was not effective – maybe magic is starting to fade?

He’s been brilliant late but Vinagre stuck tight and he struggled to operate in limited space.

Harried and hassled out of his stride, and in truth he never truly looked like scoring all afternoon. CITY suffered a massive title blow as their centre back problems cost them in dramatic style against Wolves.

Two goals from Adama Traore handed the Blues their first home defeat in 10 months, against a team that has struggled this season.

And it was the makeshift centre-back pairing of Nicolas Otamendi and Fernandinho which suffered, their lack of cohesion and pace brutally exposed by some perfect counter-attacking.

Pep Guardiola perhaps expressed his dissatisfaction with the situation when he suggested on Friday that City’s excellent record in the five games they had played since John Stones joined Aymeric Laporte in the treatment room was perhaps more down to luck than anything else.

His words were prophetic as a blunt, unimaginative City attack was stymied, and the searing pace of Traore undid the Blues.

Yet another defensive injury had City re-shuffling before kick-off as it was revealed Benjamin Mendy had picked up a hamstring problem.

The fact that Pep Guardiola passed over both regular left-backs Aleks Zinchenko and Angelino and plumped for Joao Cancelo – who has only played there occasionally – perhaps reflected his concern for Wolves’ pace on the counter.

He knows all about Adama Traore’s threat on the Wolves right and perhaps Cancelo had the pace and physicality to deal with him.

Guardiola and Fernandinho have both been cautious when invited to heap praise on the way the Blues have coped without Aymeric Laporte and John Stones.

We saw why as Wolves repeatedly carved them open down the middle, with Nicolas Otamendi stepping out of position and Patrick Cutrone exposing the serious lack of pace in that centre back pairing. Only a dreadful finish from the striker, a brilliant double block from Fernandinho and a neat piece of chivying from the Brazilian which fell short of a foul in the box, plus some enterprising goalkeeping Stuart Brennan from Ederson, kept it level. City looked unbalanced with Cancelo on that side. Guardiola mentioned on Friday that he has taken time to understand what was expected of him in the City system, but was just about there.

Now he was being asked to translate that crash-course in City football into a left-sided position – and cope with the electric Traore.

Predictably, he was fine going forward, but looked at sixes and sevens when forced to defend.

But the change in personnel upset the equilibrium, and City were slow of thought, sluggish of foot and lacking