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'I'm not Messi' - Rodri's back but what is wrong at Man City?
After winning the Premier League in six of the previous seven campaigns, last season was dismissed as a blip as Manchester City suffered just their second trophyless term under Pep Guardiola.
There were mitigating circumstances, such as the 115 charges hanging over the club, speculation over Guardiola's future and injury to midfielder Rodri.
But, after spending roughly £330m across this summer and January's transfer window, City were expected to return refreshed, revitalised and ready to reclaim the Premier League title.
Evidence of that is in short supply.
In fact, following Brighton's last-gasp 2-1 victory on Sunday, City have now made their worst start to a Premier League campaign since the 2004-05 season - and no team in a 38-game campaign has recovered from their position to win the title.
So, despite the return of Ballon d'Or winner Rodri and with Erling Haaland back on the goal trail, are City still realistic title challengers?
Guardiola's best teams have been built on control, patterns of play and attacking incision.
When City beat Wolves 4-0 on the opening weekend of the season, it was natural to think the troubles that had plagued them last term had been erased over the summer.
But Sunday's defeat on the south coast was a repeat of the inconsistency City displayed throughout last season.
Guardiola's side stifled Brighton in the first half, limiting the Seagulls to a single opportunity through Kaoru Mitoma.
Haaland, making his 100th Premier League appearance for City, opened the scoring with his 88th league goal for the club.
But a quadruple substitution by Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler after an hour changed the course of the game, with James Milner, Brajan Gruda, Georginio Rutter and Yasin Ayari entering the fray.
Brighton dominated from there on, equalising from the penalty spot through Milner, before a last-minute winner from Gruda.
"We conceded two goals. We were excellent for one hour," Guardiola told BBC Sport.
"After the goal we forgot to play. We were thinking of the consequences.
"I like many, many things we are doing. Like against Tottenham, we started well. I like many things the team has done here today but we were unable to win. When we conceded the goal, we stopped playing.
It's one game. The season has just started. There is a long, long season ahead of us. We will see what happens.
Only Manchester United's 1992-1993 title-winning team have recovered from losing two of their first three league matches to be crowned champions, and that came during a 42-game season.
"It's back to the drawing board for Man City," said former Chelsea and Middlesbrough goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer.
There are a lot of questions still about this team and Pep Guardiola. Is he going to turn it around? He has never been in a situation quite like this before and the hole keeps getting deeper and deeper.
Nothing impacted City's disappointing campaign last season more than the absence of Rodri.
The Spaniard, crowned the best player in the world at the 2024 Ballon d'Or awards, was ruled out with a cruciate knee ligament injury last September.
The former Atletico Madrid midfielder has long been City's difference-maker.
In fact, before defeat by Brighton, City hadn't lost a game in which Rodri had started in the Premier League since a 1-0 defeat by Spurs in February 2023 - ending a 49-game unbeaten streak for the Spaniard.
The 29-year-old remains City's most important player but it would be unjust to expect him to return to the levels he had shown previously after eight months out with injury.
"I'm not [Lionel] Messi. I'm not going to come back and just make the team win and win and win," Rodri told Sky Sports.
This is a collective. When we won in the past I needed all my team-mates. For sure I need to recover my best level and we have to look to all of ourselves, it is a collective sport. Hopefully after the break we can be much better.
Rodri, who was making his first Premier League start since injuring his knee against Arsenal 11 months ago, was also keen to stress his return alone would not be enough for City to rediscover their former selves.
"Some of the mistakes we are doing are kids' mistakes, you are not concentrating and paying attention," he added.
The reality is that we have to raise the level if we want to compete.
We are not at the level for a long, long time.
Manchester City's out-of-possession work has been the source of some of their struggles in recent weeks.
Losses to both Spurs and Brighton highlight an emerging pattern that is likely contributing to City's poor start to the season. City press high against opponents when they build up from the goalkeeper. The instruction to press high, paired with asking the full-back to cover a larger distance in which they are tasked with pressing, has given teams the chance to exploit Guardiola's men down the flanks.
For both the first goal Spurs scored and the second goal Brighton scored, the ball is moved to a defender out wide with City's attacker unable to press them tightly. The opposition's wide player is able to turn and face forwards before playing a direct pass into the channels.
One of the opposition players drops deeper dragging City's full-back with them, Nathan Ake against Spurs and Rico Lewis against Brighton.
City, therefore, end up with three players in their backline, with all three players shifting over to cover the space left vacant by the full-back.
One of City's centre-backs ends up having to defend on the flank in an area they are less comfortable with, making them more likely to lose their respective duel.
Opposition players are then able to run into the space between the spread-out three defenders.
With this general pattern seen in their two most recent games, it is worthwhile paying attention to how Guardiola and co seek to address this problem going forward.
City head into the Manchester derby against Manchester United on 14 September behind their great rivals.
Given the pressure on Ruben Amorim at the start of this season, few would have expected that.
But if there's a silver lining to City's start to the season, it's that Haaland appears back to his best.
The Norwegian's astonishingly-high standards dipped somewhat last season, despite netting 22 times in 31 league appearances.
But the 25-year-old already has three goals in as many league appearances this term.
Guardiola confirmed following the defeat by Brighton that playmaker Rayan Cherki will miss the next two months through injury, which only adds to the pressure on Haaland's shoulders.
But if City can continue to keep him among the goals and tighten up at the back, they could yet feature in the title race.
Source: BBC
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