In a PSG barrage, City faced 26 shots – the highest against them since a Champions League game against Real Madrid in September 2012 when the Spanish had 35.
Matthews Nunes – an attacking operator – at right-back, with Kyle Walker close to completing a move to AC Milan, shows the kind of malaise that has clouded City and Guardiola’s season, a flaw that needs addressing.
PSG ran amok in wide areas at will, with Bradley Barkola, Desiree Dou and substitute Ousmane Dembele leaving a trail of destruction in their wake as he was at sea, as was another substitute Rico Luiz.
Although the loss was a collective failure of manager and team as City threatened to fall apart, they conceded four goals in a game for the first time in September 2020 when they lost 5–2 at home to Leicester City.
Even after going 2-0 up, City never looked in any form or condition to manage the game. Guardiola regards possession as nine-tenths of the law of football – here they were guilty of criminal negligence, with Dembele’s goal three minutes after Haaland’s second a major turning point.
Guardiola, as he stood drenched and dazed on the sidelines, powerless to prevent a defeat that should have been much more emphatic, now realizes he has a bigger rebuilding task on his hands than he thought.
The great Kevin De Bruyne looked all of his 33 years, as did Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic, both 30, as PSG’s strengths marked every weakness that has haunted City this season. De Bruyne and Kovacic were both substituted after 70 minutes, cut off.
The statistics make grim reading for Guardiola, with City failing to win the most of any Premier League club in 2024/25 after leading nine games in all competitions this season (losing four and drawing five).
City have lost their last three Champions League games away from home since four in a row between November 2011 and December 2012 under Roberto Mancini, their second-longest losing streak.
And it was the first time they had lost a game by two goals since a 3–2 defeat to Brighton in May 2021.
