End of an era? Man City loses fourth straight game and Guardiola faces some tough questions

Champions City face crisis with four straight losses, while Liverpool shines; Guardiola faces unprecedented challenge in management career.

A sense of crisis is looming over the champions of England after they lost a fourth straight game in all competitions, 2-1 at Brighton, and slipped five points behind Liverpool in the Premier League on Saturday. Liverpool beat Aston Villa 2-0 thanks to goals by Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah.

Second-placed City hasn’t lost four games in a row since 2006 – two years before the Abu Dhabi takeover of the club and 10 years before Guardiola’s game-changing arrival on the blue side of Manchester.

As for Guardiola, widely regarded as the world’s best coach, he has never lost four straight matches anywhere in his illustrious time in management that began in 2007.

The closest he has come was in the 2014-15 season when, at Bayern Munich, his team lost in a penalty shootout in the German Cup followed by three straight defeats – two in the Bundesliga, when Bayern had already clinched the title, and once in the Champions League.

So, Guardiola was asked, is this the end of the era, after leading City to an unprecedented four straight top-flight league titles?

“It’s what the people want, right?” he posed. “That’s normal – we won a lot. I would just like to have all the squad (available).”

That won’t be happening anytime soon considering star centre midfielder Rodri, this year’s Ballon d’Or winner, is out for the season with an ACL injury. Guardiola also had his best four centre backs – Ruben Dias, John Stones, Manuel Akanji and Nathan Ake – unavailable, while playmaker Kevin De Bruyne is clearly not sharp or fit enough on his return from injury.