Man City need more than Haaland as the season is on a knife edge

MANCHESTER, England – For 75 minutes on Tuesday night, Manchester City were cruising against Feyenoord and headed to Liverpool on Sunday with a much-needed injection of confidence after a blue run of five straight defeats. By the time manager Pep Guardiola walked back down the tunnel at full-time, however, he had seen the Dutch side horribly expose the vulnerability that infects his team, and a game that should have ended with a 3- 0 home wins ended in a draw 3-3.

It wasn’t a sixth defeat in a row, it just felt like one.

Feyenoord scored three times in the final 15 minutes at the Etihad Stadium to leave City with work to do to finish in the top eight of the Champions League group stage. More immediately, Guardiola will have to travel to Anfield this weekend to play the Premier League leaders with a group of players who look chronically low on confidence. It is now six games without a win and seven goals conceded in four days.

The finish to the game was such a shock that it left Guardiola at a loss for words.

“There is no need to say anything to (the players), they know perfectly well,” Guardiola said. “It is what it is. It’s hard to swallow now.

“We give away especially the first one and after we are not stable enough. The game was good, we played well, we scored three and could have scored more. We are a team that concedes few, few goals during these eight or nine years. We can’t close the games. Now we rest one or two days and prepare for Anfield.

For large parts of the first half, City played like a team trying to find themselves. The rout that has seen them win the last four Premier League titles is their worst run of form since 2006.

For a while, though, it looked that way Erling Haaland wanted paper over the cracks. Much of the first-half performance looked awkward and disjointed until the Norwegian striker smashed home a penalty in the 44th minute.

That seemed to demoralize Feyenoord, who then conceded two more in eight minutes after the break. Ilkay Gündoğan’s deflected volley made it 2-0 before Matheus Nunes raced down the right and crossed for Haaland to score his second of the night. He now has 51 goals involved (goals and assists) in the Champions League – reaching the benchmark in 44 games, fewer than anyone else in the competition’s history.

The beauty of having such a prolific goalscorer is that he can cover up a number of issues.

Guardiola certainly believed he had done enough to win the game and, with an eye on Liverpool, took the opportunity to substitute Nathan Ake, Phil Foden and Gündoğan with more than 20 minutes remaining. That left Nunes and James McAtee in the middle of midfield and a Feyenoord team that seemed devoid of attacking ideas suddenly became emboldened.

Anis Hadj Moussa scored what looked like a consolation before the substitution Santiago Gimenez — returning from injury — tied for second with eight minutes remaining.

In the wake of Saturday’s 4-0 defeat to Tottenham, Guardiola branded his squad “fragile”. And that’s exactly how they looked during a chaotic final.

Igor Paixão chased a long ball over the top, Ederson came flying out to clear the danger only to be left in a heap on the floor. Only with Rico Lewis guarded the goal Paixão crossed for David Hanko to head in and send the Feyenoord fans behind the goal into a bouncing mass of delirium.

“If you’re from Feyenoord, it was an incredible night,” coach Brian Priske said. “It was a strange game. It was an incredible result. For me they are still the best team in the world. You always believe, but we knew it was always going to be a difficult game. We don’t usually celebrate draws. but this is a bit special.”

The traveling Feyenoord supporters spent the last few minutes chanting the name of former boss Arne Slot – now in charge of Liverpool – and chanting “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.

Slot has the small matter of Real Madrid to take care of on Wednesday before he faces City at the weekend, but when it comes time to watch the final 15 minutes of the game against Feyenoord, the Dutchman will be licking his lips in anticipation. Liverpool have scored two or more goals in each of their last six games. City, meanwhile, have conceded at least two in each of their last six.

Guardiola said on Saturday that City will be out of the title race before Christmas if they lose at Anfield and leave an 11-point gap open. His job now is to try and lift his players to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“We have to (win), we have to,” Guardiola said of Sunday’s game against Liverpool. “That’s my job. We didn’t lose today. Everyone knows the situation. I don’t need to add anything absolutely. We have to train (Wednesday), recover and prepare for the next game. Day off and we have two or three days to prepare and go for it.”

Even at this early stage, it feels like their season is on a knife edge.