While Manchester City are trying to come back against Tottenham Coming off four straight losses, we took a deep dive into the defensive issues contributing to the losses…

City are currently conceding 1.2 goals per game – their worst rate in a Premier League season under Pep Guardiola (previously the worst was one per game in the Spaniard’s first season in charge).

However, they are actually taking about the same number of shots as they have in the last two seasons (7.8 per game this campaign compared to 7.7 in both 2022-23 and 2023-24) – the amount of blows they receive is not the problem.

In fact, only two teams – Bayern Munich and Getafe – concede fewer shots per game in Europe’s big five leagues this term.

The reason they concede so many goals is because of the quality of the chances they give up which are excellent.

Guardiola’s side are actually giving up the highest quality of chances in Europe’s top five leagues this season – in terms of expected goals (xG) per shot faced.

The shots they’ve given up so far are worth an average of 0.155xG. That means historically teams score those chances 15.5% of the time, and that’s exactly what they do – City’s opponents have a 15.1% conversion rate so far.

They got a penalty, which in turn increases the number of xG per shot faced, but they still gave up the best chances in Europe, excluding penalties – 0.148 xG per shot faced.

So this isn’t a story of opponents being particularly ruthless in front of goal and City just being a little unlucky. The defending Premier League champions are giving up excellent chances to teams – who were only too happy to take them.