The Football Faithful
·12 de diciembre de 2024
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Yahoo sportsThe Football Faithful
·12 de diciembre de 2024
Manchester City are a side in dire straights right now. A European defeat at Juventus extended their recent form to just one win in 10 games across all competitions.
For a side that has dominated the Premier League across the last decade, it’s an unfathomable decline. The Citizens are eight points adrift in the title race, having played a game more, and now face a fight to secure Champions League progress.
Defeat in Turin leaves Pep Guardiola’s men 22nd in the newly-formatted Champions League table. Automatic progress to the Round of 16 looks all but over, with City clinging on to a second chance to reach that stage via the play-offs. It really has been a miserable period for the Blues.
Since the start of November, City have conceded more goals across all competitions than any other team from Europe’s big five leagues. They’ve let in a whopping 21 in just nine games played.
Their plight has been made all the more apparent by the shocking statistic that San Marino, arguably football’s most famous whipping boys, have won more games in their last 10 fixtures than the Citizens.
Yes, really.
FIFA’s lowest-ranked international nation, bottom of the pile at 210th in the world, have won twice in their last 10 games.
After waiting 34 years for their first competitive win, San Marino beat Liechtenstein 1-0 in the Nations League in September. The minnows then repeated the feat by beating Liechtenstein again in November, earning promotion to the third tier of the Nations League in the process.