Manchester City’s 1-0 defeat to Southampton yesterday was their ninth in the league this season. The Citizens have now lost more games than rivals Manchester United and Arsenal.
Considering they had just beaten champions Liverpool 4-0, the stat epitomises Pep Guardiola side’s lack of consistency this season, and supporters on Twitter have been left frustrated by the club’s latest loss:
that’s nauseating
— CLassonGraSs (@tyrone_fish) July 5, 2020
Embarrassing.
— mahrezzzzz (@mahrezz_szn) July 5, 2020
Stupid mistakes and complacency in front of goal. Simples.
Tonight there were some@really out of form players playing and we were too slow in build up. You can get away with 1 older player in midfield, but not 2.— RyanD2588 (@D2588Ryan) July 5, 2020
A 'Typical City' performance.
— 'My Mate Stormy' (@DavyMac1894) July 5, 2020
Defense mistakes costing us
— Seydaliyare10 (@seydaliyare10) July 5, 2020
This pretty much sums up our season ?
— Bongumusa Cele (@Prospa_Pro) July 5, 2020
Typical City
— jwakingz?? (@NyemezuJ) July 5, 2020
Just waiting for CL and next season at this point
— We beat Madrid, now do it again (@TheCityEra) July 5, 2020
Darkness?
— Dawan_k15 (@Kharlukhi_15) July 5, 2020
In the grand scheme of things, the loss to the Saint matters very little, and the performance, on the whole, was pretty good.
Even so, these type of defeats have been pretty common this season, and if they are to make up the sizeable gap to Liverpool next campaign, they will need to cut out the mistakes that have cost them so many points in their title defence.
Oleksandr Zinchenko owned up to his error that led to Che Adams’ winner yesterday, but those kinds of lapses in concentration have been too frequent over the past year.