All of a sudden, Manchester City look rather mortal.
If Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham Hotspur can be chalked up as a blessing in disguise for a side with a packed schedule, Saturday’s Premier League loss away to Bournemouth was, at best, sobering, and at worst, genuinely concerning.
It means City have been beaten in consecutive games for the first time in over a year. The last time it happened was September 2023, when they lost 1-0 at Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup’s third round and then 2-1 at Molineux by Wolverhampton Wanderers in the league three days later.
City are such serial winners under manager Pep Guardiola that they have only suffered back-to-back defeats seven times since his appointment in summer 2016. This season is his ninth in charge. He’s won six Premier League titles. Yes, City have bad games, but they almost never go through bad patches.
That said, they are developing a particularly alarming habit of starting games slowly. Such a pattern was there against Bournemouth, right from the first minute, with the hosts pressing aggressively in midfield, making regains and immediately playing in behind.
City conceded six direct attacks, which Opta define as a sequence starting in a side’s defensive half, which results in either a shot or a touch inside the opposition’s penalty area within 15 seconds. It is the second time in the 10 league games this season they have conceded that many in a game, also doing so in the 3-2 home win against Fulham.
Before the Fulham game, City last conceded more than five direct attacks in December 2022 during a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford shortly before the Premier League paused for the playing of the World Cup in Qatar.
The six big chances conceded were also the most against City by a Premier League opponent since Brentford in that same game almost two years ago. Bournemouth weren’t so much smash-and-grab as smash, smash, and smash again.
City’s per-game average for direct attacks conceded in the opening months of this season (2.9) is over twice as high as it was in 2023-24. Structurally, behind the ball, they are OK, but having no Rodri, gone for the season with a knee injury, to cut out transitions before they occur and the improved counter-attacking quality within the league mean holes keep being found.
Ederson was forced into fine saves at the start of each half, in the first from Antoine Semenyo, and then Evanilson just after half-time.
City were guilty of overplaying in their build-up, falling into the midfield traps set by Bournemouth — one of the Premier League’s best pressing teams — when attempting to find the feet of Bernardo Silva or Phil Foden. “Our play was not clean,” said Guardiola.
Although for the City manager, the issues were “more high pressing long balls. (If) you lose the duel, they win the second ball and they run, after that, all this stuff happens”.
“We could not match up the intensity,” Guardiola said. “The long balls, we could not win it, and when you don’t win these types of balls to (Antoine) Semenyo or strikers, you have to defend deeper. In the past, we were able to handle these kinds of situations. You have to be strong, you have to win it (the duel). Sometimes opponents are better, so I have to accept it.”
Over 73 per cent of Bournemouth’s first-half long passes were successful. Evanilson, despite being one-v-two against Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji up front, consistently won duels, and City’s back four suffered as No 10 Justin Kluivert played close to his striker. Bournemouth kept getting at an exposed defence, and were wasteful with plenty of their crosses, but could then press City.
City conceding after nine minutes means they have gone 1-0 down in four of their past six games in all competitions. And in three of those matches, the first goal has come inside the first 15 minutes.
Fulham and Wolves also repeatedly found space, overloads and chances when counter-attacking against City. Bournemouth aren’t an exception, but are proving a rule — the Premier League’s four-in-a-row champions have serious issues in defensive transition.
City have already matched the 2023-24 season for Premier League goals conceded inside the opening 15 minutes (four), and 2024-25 is on course to be their worst for slow starts since Guardiola’s debut season, when they let in eight during the first quarter of an hour of games.
Conceding similar chances and similar goals is the biggest problem. Bournemouth’s second, which involved getting left-back Milos Kerkez in behind right-back Kyle Walker and hitting an early cross for Evanilson to poke home, was a repeat of an up-back-through move they had tried in the first half, and was effectively a mirror-image of both the first goal Tottenham scored in midweek, and Wolves’ one against City two weeks ago.
“The second goal, a long ball, we lose that duel, and after that they run,” said Guardiola. “I think the second goal defines quite well what happened, the moments we suffer.”
City’s imbalances and pack-shuffling in advanced areas, largely due to injuries, naturally means the machine is not currently as well-oiled as in previous seasons, but they had two “proper defenders” (to use a Guardiola phrase) playing at full-back against Bournemouth, and did not come close to shutting down Semenyo or Marcus Tavernier.
In fact, Guardiola’s counterpart Andoni Iraola switched his wingers to opposite sides at 1-0 up, to use Semenyo in a more defensive role against Walker’s overlaps. Bournemouth are deservedly developing a reputation as giantkillers, having beaten Arsenal in the home fixture before this one, but even Iraola joked post-match that Guardiola always beats him.
Bournemouth were particularly strong at jumping from a mid-block to a high press when City played back to Ederson. The goalkeeper’s focus was on clipped passes out to the full-backs on both sides — Guardiola gestured to left-back Josko Gvardiol early on that he wanted him by the touchline.
Yet City were repeatedly boxed in, and their only real solutions were to drop one of the midfield three — initially Mateo Kovacic, then Bernardo and also Ilkay Gundogan in the second half — between or beside the centre-backs to manipulate Bournemouth’s press and open up more passing angles.
Despite a late onslaught, Iraola’s side were in control for most of the game. City’s late chances were primarily shots from distance and corners, with centre-backs Ilyas Zabarnyi and Marcos Senesi imperious when defending against Erling Haaland. The Norwegian has scored only once in five Premier League appearances.
City haven’t conceded more than a goal-per-game across a full league season since that first year under Guardiola in 2016-17, but currently have a defensive record of 11 conceded in 10 games, with only two clean sheets.
They risk, like Liverpool last season, becoming too reliant on comebacks, an easier strategy when you have a deep bench and individual quality, but ultimately an unsustainable method of winning — and not something champions do.
(Top photo: Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)
