Manchester City 1, Southampton 1: Pep Guardiola left wrestling with City’s fallible streak as winless run reaches fifth game
Manchester City 1, Southampton 1
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola admits he is perplexed by his team’s sudden vulnerability after they failed to win for the fifth match in succession on Sunday.
The hosts again looked a shadow of the team that started Guardiola’s reign with 10 consecutive wins as £50m defender John Stones gifted Nathan Redmond Southampton’s opener with a sloppy backpass.
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Substitute Kelechi Iheanacho struck a second-half equaliser but the visitors extended their unbeaten run to eight fixtures as City striker Sergio Aguero endured a third barren game in a row.
The result was enough to return Guardiola’s men to the Premier League summit on goal difference, with a congested top five separated by a point, but the Spaniard kept his players in the dressing room for an hour after full-time to dissect another lacklustre display.
“I took a little bit longer. We speak about what is the situation,” said the former Bayern Munich and Barcelona coach, who also saw playmaker Kevin de Bruyne taken off injured.
“I was a football player and I know this can happen. You are able to win 10 times in a row and after you are not able to win five times. You have to accept that. I have to discover the reason why.
“We start quite well. Now in that moment we are not in that rhythm we had before. We didn’t have 90 bad, bad minutes. But when we are not perfect, we concede a lot.”
Southampton manager Claude Puel, whose side stay eighth, praised his team for their response to a narrow Europa League defeat at Inter Milan less than 72 hours earlier.
“I’m happy of course for the point and also with the spirit,” Puel said. “They finished the last game with a big disappointment.”
Redmond seized on Stones’s errant pass to round goalkeeper Claudio Bravo and score his third goal of the season in the 27th minute.
Stones thought he had levelled moments later but his close-range finish from De Bruyne’s free-kick was disallowed for offside.
Half-time replacement Iheanacho equalised when he beat Saints defender Virgil van Dijk to Leroy Sane’s low cross in the 55th minute.