Manchester City surrendered a winning position to lose at Brighton - just as they did last season
More than £320million spent and 122 days in 2025 to reshape Pep Guardiola’s squad, but the recruitment gurus at Manchester City won’t have got much sleep last night as they weigh up the final chance to make a difference this year.
It’s been a whirlwind few months already at the Etihad, with the door slamming shut on some big careers and almost enough players to field an entire new starting XI coming into the club. They might not be done yet, either.
Three or four first-team players could go today, and one of the best goalkeepers in the world could arrive. But is it going to be enough? On the evidence of the first three games of the season, the doubts are growing.
It’s worth remembering that [City’s](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/manchester-city-fc) slump began with the old guard last autumn. The unprecedented investment in January was seen as an overdue beginning to attempts to refresh the squad.
But one of the many secrets to City’s success under Guardiola has been a remarkable hit rate when it comes to recruitment. Of the nine players signed for sizeable sums this year (including teenagers Vitor Reis and Sverre Nypan), how many will go down as successes?
Only the passage of time can answer that question, but so far, the new Manchester City looks an awful lot like the end of the old one. Just take the first three games of this season for comparison.
A win against a mediocre Wolves. Pressured into submission by a counterattacking Tottenham. Unable to cope with the pressure when Brighton find an extra gear. Is that this season or last? It all sounds wearisomely familiar.
Just as they did at the Amex last November, City looked in control for a while on the south coast. Then Brighton found something, which in this instance was a quadruple change by Fabian Hurzeler.
That turned the game and City couldn’t respond. The extent to which they were overrun in the final 20 minutes was alarming, and the Seagulls attacked relentlessly. But for James Trafford, the damage could have been worse, and City simply couldn’t get near the home team’s intensity.
The midfield has received the biggest facelift this year, but little has changed. This team still has a soft underbelly.
It was a surprise Rodri started, never mind lasted 90 minutes, but Nico Gonzalez was poor last week. Whatever the £50million January addition is showing in training, he isn’t showing in games. Guardiola clearly doesn’t have complete trust in the Spaniard.
Tijjani Reijnders also went 90 minutes, but the Dutchman was bullied in the second half. He can look bright in the final third, but was anonymous against Tottenham and almost irrelevant in the final quarter against Brighton.
Reijnders might need time to get up to speed in the Premier League. Abdukodir Khusanov looks a promising buy, and Omar Marmoush has his moments. Trafford was excellent on the south coast, but he will rightly have concerns about his status if Gianluigi Donnarumma does sign.
That is likely to be the only incoming at the Etihad on deadline day. Even that is a strange one, given the Italian isn’t a classic Guardiola 'keeper.
A title challenge this season already looks unlikely. City are too soft and too easy to play against. Get in their faces, make it uncomfortable and put them under pressure, and the signs are they might just crack. On Friday, Guardiola made the honest admission they would lose to the centurions, to the team who won four domestic trophies in a season, to the treble winners and to the four-in-a-row side.
You can’t argue with that. The question now is what will define this group. Will it be silverware, as it almost always has been for City teams under Guardiola? Or is this the squad that oversees the end of an era?
Maybe that will be seen to be overly dramatic in time, but these are worrying days for City. They look a level below Liverpool and Arsenal and unless Guardiola can find something on the training ground, it could be a long old season.
After the end of the window and the international break, it is Manchester United, Napoli and Arsenal. That is already looking like a big week.