DANNY MURPHY: Pep’s side have become far too easy to play against

I haven't read much about Man City's four previous defeats, all of which were away from home and were partly due to fielding weakened teams or not taking their chances.

But Saturday night's hammering at the Etihad by Tottenham is a huge wake-up call that Pep Guardiola must take very seriously.

While City are becoming too reliant on Erling Haaland to score goals, their biggest concern is how easy Spurs found them to play against.

When Pep is in his pomp, even his technical wizards like David Silva have been working hard to take down opponents. With Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool they were the best pressing team, opponents could not match it.

I didn't see any of that on Saturday. It didn't take a genius to realize that Rodri would be a big miss, but they have deteriorated defensively more than anyone expected.

Spurs overwhelmed and defeated City with ease. Some of City's play was lazy. The way Ilkay Gundogan let James Maddison run away to score was a fundamental dereliction of duty and he was not the only one to blame.

There are two factors. Firstly, City may be collectively in the comfort zone, having won so much for so long. Secondly, the physicality doesn't look good.

Kyle Walker is a good example. His game relies on being athletic and while it is admirable that he came back from injury early because the team needed him, he is not at his usual level.

I think Guardiola wants to work on the way his team plays without the ball ahead of Sunday's big match against Liverpool. Regardless of your creativity, you cannot survive at this level unless the “dirty” side of the game, retrieving and limiting space, is organized and adhered to.

You can see the city boss searching for answers. He has changed his defense system regularly. Even at half-time on Saturday, he switched gears, moving Rico Lewis to central midfield and going to a 4-3-3 instead of a 4-4-1-1.

It is also worrying that Haaland accounts for half of the team's goals. It's time for others to step up. I have more confidence that Guardiola can solve the attacking half of the riddle, provided Kevin De Bruyne gets up to speed. I was encouraged by how sharp the Belgian looked when he came on against Spurs.

A quick word about Tottenham's James Maddison, when he plays like this there is no better English playmaker in the league. It is up to him to maintain these standards.

But for City, famous for their runs in the second half of the season, this really is a critical time. If Liverpool beat Southampton on Sunday and City next weekend, they will be eleven points ahead in the table. Not even the great Catalan escapologist could come back from that.