Few teams divide opinion quite as fiercely as Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.
Whether you’re still trying to wrap your head around the club’s sixth defeat in 33 days, or you’re quietly enjoying the spectacular malfunction of the winning machine, City’s swing of results in the last few weeks has been one of the most dramatic slumps of the Premier League era.
The bigger picture statistics are well documented — this is the first time in his entire managerial career that Guardiola has failed to win across seven successive games — but what do some of the underlying numbers tell us about City’s winless streak?
Thom Harris and Liam Tharme investigate below.
Guardiola watches City lose at Liverpool on Sunday – their sixth defeat in seven games (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Most readers will be familiar with expected goals (xG) and other metrics used for this piece, but for those who would like a refresher, check out The Athletic’s football analytics glossary.
The top line is relatively clear. City continue to create chances at their usual high rate, with only league-leaders Liverpool averaging a higher rate of expected goals (xG) per game this season, but shakier — much shakier — defensive foundations threaten to undermine any title charge.
As we can see from the graphic below, taking a rolling average of non-penalty xG for and against across their last 10 Premier League games, there has been a sharp uptick in the quality of opportunities they are giving away this season. City have never been in an xG deficit under Pep Guardiola — conceding better chances than they create for themselves— but that red line has recently crept as close to the blue as it ever has.
Not only are City being more easily breached — they are allowing an average of 8.7 shots per game this season compared to a low of 6.2 across the Guardiola era — but the quality of those chances is alarmingly high, too, as the bar chart below reveals.
Just over 74 per cent of their shots against have fallen in the penalty area — the third-highest proportion of any Premier League side — while only two sides have allowed more goals from inside their own six-yard box.
And when City have conceded chances this season, they have tended to be very lucrative.
The tactical issues behind these numbers are diverse, but an inefficient high press, a high line and difficulty defending crosses have all played their part.
City’s Premier League opponents have completed one-third of crosses in 2024-25, making Guardiola’s side the least effective team at dealing with crosses in the past six seasons — on average, crosses are completed at a rate of around one in five. There is a particular problem with defending deep deliveries into the box, with City conceding the joint-most goals from back-post crosses in the league (level with Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers).
Liverpool’s opening goal in City’s recent defeat at Anfield was a neat encapsulation of their problems. Guardiola’s side aren’t conceding any more crosses per game than the past three seasons, they’re just defending them much less effectively.
Here, from a Liverpool corner, City squeeze up to a mid-block, but they lack pressure on the ball and right-midfielder (in the 4-4-2) Rico Lewis is stuck with two opponents to mark, so can’t jump forward to apply pressure.
It means Andy Robertson can find Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield, with Lewis late to step in and Bernardo Silva holding his position in central midfield. From there, Alexander-Arnold has time to pick out a pass to Luis Diaz down the right wing with a switch. He is smartly positioned in Manuel Akanji’s blind spot. For a defensive line this high, and a back four so narrow, City haven’t got enough pressure on the ball.
A good opportunity becomes a great chance because City’s two full-backs defend poorly. Akanji never gets close enough to Mohamed Salah, sitting off to defend the dribble inside and shot. But that means that Salah can come, unpressured, from the wing to the half-space.
City get enough numbers back, with a six-v-five in the box — their two defensive midfielders have recovered — but right-back Kyle Walker switches off at the back post, and fails to track Cody Gakpo’s run. Akanji hasn’t done enough to block the crossing angle, so Salah curls it low, between Akanji and Nathan Ake, and Gakpo meets it for a tap-in.
City conceded a very similar opener the week before at home to Tottenham Hotspur. Another mid-block with a high line and insufficient pressure on the ball. Centre-back Radu Dragusin plays a pass beyond left-back Josko Gvardiol, searching for Dejan Kulusevski.
Gvardiol is passive, like Akanji was against Liverpool, and ends up second to a ball he should win. A lack of support from left-winger Savinho means Gvardiol is stranded one-v-two against Kulusevski and the advancing Pedro Porro, which prevents him from getting out to stop the cross.
City’s midfielders are too slow to retreat, with goalscorer James Maddison running off the back of Ilkay Gundogan into space as centre-back John Stones is anticipating the pass into centre-forward Dominic Solanke. Walker, at right-back, fails to defend the back post.
Kulusevski’s floated cross is perfectly weighted for Maddison’s run — goalkeeper Ederson would have claimed it with a more aggressive start position — and he taps in.
It’s a theme that shows up in the numbers. City’s five goals conceded from back-post crosses is the joint-most in the league, while only strugglers Wolves and Southampton have allowed more than their 4.1 xG from those deep deliveries.
Visualising those crosses only compounds what the eye test suggests, with the space behind City’s right-back — usually Walker, or the right-sided defender in a back three — the most lucrative area for the opposition to attack.
The inconsistency of City’s back line has not helped. Guardiola has already used seven different centre-backs in the Premier League, with defensive leader Ruben Dias missing three league games with a calf injury.
Ruben Dias’ return to the City XI on Sunday was testing (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
It is, in part, down to City not winning enough duels. Their success rate is only 43.1 per cent for aerial duels in the defensive third this season, the lowest for a Premier League team on record since the start of 2018-19, and a 16 per cent drop on last campaign.
The best team in that time? This season’s Liverpool, who have won 71.6 per cent. It is why Liverpool head coach Arne Slot made a big deal about winning duels after their first game of the campaign.
City have been just as susceptible to counter-attacks this season, another byproduct of their inefficiency in duels and an unusually high line.
Although the sample size is much lower — City have only provoked 25 offsides this season, opposed to 82 last season — the average height of those infractions does illustrate the dramatic leap that the back line seem to have made up the pitch.
Fast breaks will always be dangerous to City as a high-possession, territorially-dominant side, and the absence of Rodri in midfield offers a partial explanation for their pronounced weakness this season, for his security in-possession to minimise turnovers, and his tendency to make smart fouls and stop transitions when they do threaten to occur. That said, it’s notable that Guardiola has doubled down on his style despite City not getting the desired results.
Only West Ham United (14) have given up more fast-break shots (13 for City), while only three teams have conceded more fast-break goals than City’s three.
It felt more of a statistical anomaly last season, as they conceded eight goals from opposition counter-attacks, despite limiting them to just 16 shots. This time, the underlying numbers are more severe, giving up around 0.34 xG a game from fast breaks — that’s over 12 times as much as the league’s most secure team in that regard, Bournemouth.
The Premier League has improved overall in recent years, with most teams investing in fast, individualistic forwards which has made the league more counter-attacking, though City have made plenty of individual errors when playing through midfield, particularly wide players trying to pass into the No 6 position.
A clear example came against Sporting CP, as Savinho underhit a simple pass to Mateo Kovacic.
Pedro Goncalves intercepts and releases Viktor Gyokeres into space, behind Kovacic and with Akanji nowhere near enough to impact play. In eight seconds, a slack pass becomes a one-v-one for the opposition.
It’s a perfect storm, the likes of which Guardiola hasn’t seen in his time at the club, as injuries and individual mistakes compile the tactical disarray.
City have already committed more errors leading to shots than they did in three of the last four seasons — Dias was the latest victim of that trend at Anfield — while their 42 ‘big chances’ conceded (as defined by Opta) is only topped by the three promoted clubs.
On Wednesday night, they face Nottingham Forest, the only team to beat Liverpool this season and who are more than happy to sit deep and hit on the break. It’s been a torrid few weeks for City, and it may not be over yet.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
