Man City are a mess: Disastrous defence, missing midfield and no help for Erling Haaland means Pep Guardiola needs a miracle to avoid title-race defining loss at Liverpool

Everywhere you look at City at the moment, there are major issues. But the biggest problem area is undoubtedly defence, and City made unwanted Champions League history on Tuesday against Feyenoord by becoming the first team to fail to win a game after being three goals up in the 74th minute.

These are unprecedented times for the club in the Abu Dhabi era. The thrashing by Tottenham was Guardiola's heaviest-ever home defeat, while it was City's biggest loss since moving into the Etihad Stadium in 2003.

There are two obvious reasons for their woes: the twin absences of Rodri and Ruben Dias. City famously didn't lose a game for over 15 months with Rodri in the team, and the Ballon d'Or winner's season-ending injury has shaken them from top to bottom. But as well as having no real defensive midfield cover, they are suffering badly without Dias, who has been out for the last month with a calf injury.

The Portugal international was the solution to their last crisis of results, when they surrendered the title to Liverpool in 2019-20. His arrival led to them winning a historic four consecutive titles, and they look lost without him. Rather like with Rodri, the difference between City when Dias is playing and when he isn't is stark. According to The Athletic, the centre-back has been responsible for 20 percent of City's clearances in the Premier League since he joined from Benfica. When Dias starts, City concede a goal every 70 minutes; when he doesn't, it's every 60 minutes.

Without Dias, City are also lacking coordination in their pressing. They are playing with a higher defensive line than in any previous season and are being punished on the counter as they struggle to catch opponents offside.

City's defensive frailties, however, cannot all be blamed on the absence of their Iberian lynchpins, nor on John Stones' repeated absences. Josko Gvardiol has given away four goals through errors in the last two games, while Kyle Walker looks like he is approaching the end of his career at the highest level, his 34 years and 60-plus games per season eventually catching up with him. The inexperienced teenager Jahmai Simpson Pusey, who Guardiola refers to as "the young lad", has been thrown into the fire and, at least for now, seems out of his depth.

Then there is Ederson. The aforementioned high defensive line has led to City relying more and more on the Brazilian goalkeeper to sweep up behind the defence. He is making the third-highest number of sweeper-keeper actions in the Premier League this season (according to The Athletic) and sweeping at his most frequent rate since his first season with the club, in 2017-2018. The 31-year-old has, however, contended with a number of injuries within the last year and is not nearly as sharp as coming out of his area and clearing as before. Just look at how he misjudged the flight of the through ball in the build-up to Feyenoord's equaliser, while he had also been sloppy for the other two goals.

Doubts about Ederson's shot-stopping are not new, and it is no secret that he is City's No.1 on account of his ball-playing abilities than his capacity to make top-draw saves. But his propensity to concede the first shot he faces is getting more and more obvious. It was a theme of the last two seasons, but it mattered little as City were so productive down the other end. Now the goals are drying up, they cannot afford to have such an unconvincing goalkeeper between the posts.

City's midfield is not performing much better. If things were bad enough without Rodri, they are even worse without Mateo Kovacic. Ilkay Gundogan has been left to anchor the midfield largely by himself, only getting support from the technically brilliant but rather lightweight Rico Lewis.

Gundogan has never been suited to the holding midfield role and Guardiola choosing him in that position over Rodri and Fernandinho in the 2021 Champions League final was a huge factor in City's defeat to Chelsea. Three years on, now aged 34 and after a season with Barcelona, he is finding it even harder. Jamie Redknapp and Gary Neville both agreed he "got nowhere near" Tottenham's James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski while covering the match for Sky Sports.

Bernardo Silva has been hugely disappointing too, as he is lacking his usual dynamism. Indeed, things have got so bad for City's enginge room that Rodri is now targeting a return from knee surgery before the end of the season. It is never a good idea to rush your recovery, but Rodri clearly cannot bear to witness his team toiling without him and wants to get back as soon as possible to stop the rot.

The attacking midfielders and forwards are also having a torrid time. Phil Foden is a shadow of the player he was last season, showing less interest in trying to dictate the play like he didin 2023-24 and is thus witnessing a massive drop off in his production. He has just one assist in the Premier League, with no goals in domestic competition.

Speaking of no goals, Jack Grealish hasn't scored in any competition for City in 2024, while Savinho has failed to score since switching to the Etihad from Girona, despite showing flashes of brilliance. Kevin De Bruyne, meanwhile, has been largely powerless to help the team, playing just 60 minutes of football since getting injured against Brentford in September. His fitness troubles have even prevented him from making a decision about his future as he has stalled on talks of extending his contract, which expires in June.

It has left an unhealthy reliance on Erling Haaland to do the bulk of City's scoring. Haaland scored 27 of City's 96 league goals last season (27%). This season he has been responsible for 12 of their 22 strikes, a stonking 54%.

The Norwegian is not enjoying vintage campaign either, despite making a ferocious start of 10 goals in his first four league games, as he has netted just twice in his next seven and has been uncharacteristically wasteful in front of goal. But as he scored twice against Feyenoord, it was tempting to conclude that, as Guardiola had suggested the previous day, the team's malaise is not Haaland's making.

The coach said: "I would say the reason for our lack of goals is not Erling Haaland. Without Erling, we would be more in trouble! We are lucky to have Erling. Every game, he has three or four chances. One day he scores two or three. We have four or five wingers, but we only had one. Phil was excellent in that position but he's struggled early with niggles and little things. Kevin has been injured. That is the reality and we have to adapt."

City's usually stoic mindset has also gone AWOL lately. The team that used to be able to withstand big setbacks during games or off the pitch - be it injuries or the 115 charges - are now capitulating over the first sign of trouble.

During this run, there have been some positive spells. They actually made an excellent start against Sporting and could have been several goals up before falling to a 4-1 defeat. They spurned a couple of decent chances in the opening stages against Spurs too, and even though they had been a little flat against Feyenoord, they looked in total control until conceding the first goal.

Lightning keeps on striking twice, though. City let in two goals in the space of seven minutes against Spurs on Saturday, two in five minutes at Brighton, two in three minutes in Lisbon and two in seven minutes against Feyenoord. On Tuesday, Guardiola admitted: "We were playing at a good level but the first time something happened, we had problems." He also called the team "fragile", just as he had following the Tottenham thrashing. After the crushing defeat by Ruben Amorim's Sporting, he had said some players were "not emotionally stable".

Former City defender Gael Clichy said Guardiola's side were "missing a vocal leader, a strong leader at the back", while Alan Shearer was even more damning in his criticism, saying: "They look weak, they look light, they look frail."

City could hardly be in a worse state ahead of their biggest game of the season so far, against runaway Premier League leaders Liverpool. Guardiola's compelling tactical battles with Jurgen Klopp made City-Liverpool the greatest rivalry in English football, but the Reds look an even more formidable force under Arne Slot. The Dutchman has led the team to win 17 of their 19 games, the club's best-ever run of form, and they have just beaten Real Madrid.

City have been only beaten Liverpool away from home once since 2003, but that came during the 2020-21 season when there were no fans in the stadium. If City could not win at Anfield when they were at their very best, then what hope do they have of getting a result when they are in their worst run of form since Guardiola's debut campaign?

Liverpool have an eight-point lead at the top of the table which would become an 11-point gap over City with a victory on Sunday, and both Guardiola and Gundogan have admitted it would end their chances of holding on to the title. But a victory, as unlikely as it seems, would trim the deficit to five points and be a rallying cry to turn the season around and show that there is still life in this team.

"Anfield is always tough, no matter the situation. We've struggled in recent years going there," said Gundogan. "We know Liverpool are a great team full of confidence right now. It's going to be as tough as it is possible to be. But that sums up the situation right now. It seems we have to go through this season the toughest way possible. Obviously we've done this ourselves a little bit, but hopefully we can get out of that as quickly as possible, especially in such a big game."

On current form, it will take a miracle for City to topple Liverpool on Sunday. It's a good thing that Guardiola has signed a new contract until 2027, because tidying this mess up is definitely a long-term project.