Manchester City lose again at King Power Stadium

Pep Guardiola, Man City boss not happy with his boys

Manchester City’s unhappy Christmas continued as Leicester fought back from a goal down to inflict another defeat on the champions, who also had Fabian Delph sent off. Pep Guardiola’s side thus fell below Tottenham Hotspur to third in the table, seven points adrift of leaders Liverpool. The title is a two-horse race? City hopes not.

Leicester deserved to add the scalp of Pep Guardiola’s team to that of Chelsea, which they claimed on Saturday. They did so thanks to a superb long-range goal by Ricardo Pereira nine minutes from time. Marc Albrighton had headed an equaliser in the first half, five minutes after Bernardo Silva shot the visitors into the lead.

At first it seemed like this would be a stress-free return to routine for those visitors after Saturday’s shock home defeat by Crystal Palace. It also seemed like Harry Maguire might be the one in for a bothersome day, as the Leicester centre back declared in the match programme that last week’s defeat by Pep Guardiola’s team in the Carabao Cup showed that the hosts could not afford to “show too much respect” to the visitors.

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“Hopefully we can learn from that,” said Maguire, adding that Leicester could go “toe-to-toe” with Manchester City. “I feel that’s when we’re at our best,” he said. But he is not Leicester’s manager. Claude Puel decided to adopt the same cautious approach that yielded victory at Stamford Bridge at the weekend, redeploying the same lineup and ordering 11 players to retreat deep behind the ball whenever their opponents had possession. Manchester City were in the end shown plenty of respect.