The thing about long, self-sustaining losing runs is they mutate and spawn new problems. Even though there have been far worse performances from Manchester City over their run of one win in 10 games than Wednesday's 2-0 UEFA Champions League loss at Juventus, it felt like a particularly low ebb -- perhaps for the very reason that they played well.
To be clear, this isn't playing well to the standards of the team that has won a record four Premier League titles in succession, six out of the past seven and a historic 2022/23 treble. But considering where they are right now, without key personnel and with those players who are technically fit to play in various states of physical disrepair, City were good in Turin.
At times like -- as Manchester United know very well -- rumours of dressing-room strife and mutiny can flow like the mulled wine Blues and Reds will lubricate themselves with at Manchester's Christmas markets before Sunday's derby. And yet, City were so on message with Guardiola in Italy this week that it will have made Zlatan Ibrahimovic wince. Good little "schoolboys" everywhere.
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Pre-match, via his news conference, Guardiola told his players to get back to basics with "one thousand, million passes" to slow the tempo down and control matters with the ball. They did that at the Allianz Stadium, hogging 69 percent of the ball and completing 93 percent of 699 passes. It rarely set the pulse racing and often verged on tepid, but they carried out the plan and it could have ended up as a note-perfect European night had Erling Haaland converted from Kevin De Bruyne's sublime throughball before halftime.
"We missed the last pass. We arrived at the six-yard box or penalty box many times," Guardiola said afterwards before affectionately circling the wagons. "But we are the best. I love my team, the way we play. The result is not going to convince me the opposite."
Owen Hargreaves, Rio Ferdinand and Joleon Lescott on the TNT Sports coverage in the UK all demanded City quicken the tempo and get the ball forward to a now familiarly forlorn Haaland with greater speed and frequency. However, the problem with this supposed solution was there for all to see as Juve scored twice after transitions that led to City failing to snuff out danger in their own box.
Given United were hardly dazzling in their 2-1 win at Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League on Thursday, there's a very real prospect of Sunday's derby being a showcase of two teams being really quite bad at the moment. City may even be the worse than their neighbours, for the first time in a long time.
If any of John Stones, Nathan Ake or Manuel Akanji were fit, those Juve counters would probably not have been an issue at all. But none of them are, with only Akanji holding an outside chance of making the derby. A second Premier League appearance for teenager Jahmai Simpson-Pusey is on the cards, which won't necessarily be a downgrade on a backline that currently feels like it's held together by tape, twine and Ruben Dias.
The Portugal centre-back performed heroically during last weekend's 2-2 draw at Crystal Palace, blocking everything that moved or breathed. He feels like City's de facto captain right now because the man with the armband is missing in action.
Kyle Walker is suffering a prolonged ordeal. When there were enough fit defenders for the 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest, he was allowed to sit out the first half. He replaced Akanji and was almost immediately at fault for a Forest goal. The England defender was to blame for both Palace goals and his hesitancy on Dusan Vlahovic's opener in midweek spoke of a badly scrambled mind.
Walker has a solid case for being recognised as the best right-back in Premier League history. If he isn't Guardiola's best outfield signing at City, you'd probably have to stick him in the top three. But he's 34 and at a low ebb, the symbol of a champion team that has been allowed to grow old together, as so many of them are. The denouement is still shocking when it arrives like this. The most immediate concern for Walker is he will almost certainly have to start against United because Rico Lewis is suspended. He and Marcus Rashford tangling in their current states could be the highlight of a morbid spectacle.
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There are obviously demands from supporters for City to begin fixing the mess in the January transfer window. Links to Newcastle United's Bruno Guimaraes have once again emerged and he does feel like a bit of a silver bullet -- a player who could sit at the base of the midfield and make up some of the huge physicality deficit left by Rodri, while being capable of playing further forward when the Ballon d'Or winner returns from ACL surgery in 2025/26.
Of course, if City had been finding recent solutions in the transfer market, they would not be trying to answer the questions they face now. A slump like this has been in the post since they reached the top of the mountain in the 2023 Champions League final against Inter Milan in Istanbul.
January will be Txiki Begiristain's last transfer window before handing over the reins to incoming director of football Hugo Viana, who might furrow his brow at his inheritance. With the exception of Josko Gvardiol, is who giving Walker a run for his money in terms of goal-causing errors at the moment, none of the arrivals over the past two summer windows have felt like elite additions or upgrades. Jeremy Doku might prove to be, but when you consider he arrived at City in the same week Cole Palmer left for Chelsea, his numbers don't stack up particularly well.
Palmer is understandably the stick with which to beat City's transfer policy right now, but it is fair to ask where he would really have fitted in last season, with Bernardo Silva one of Guardiola's eternal favourites and Phil Foden enjoying the campaign of his life. The decision a year earlier to sell Romeo Lavia while buying Kalvin Phillips feels far more costly in terms of the current Rodri-shaped hole.
It felt stupid to say it too loudly as City racked up another 90-plus points total to win the league last season, but there were signs of decline as they doggedly held off Arsenal. Too often it felt like the team were reliant on the brilliance of Rodri and Foden, plus Haaland's goals. This was not the slick, whirring systems-football of peak Guardiola. Now, Rodri is out and Foden has suffered a cluster of injury and health problems this term. Throw in De Bruyne's recent two-month injury absence and you have Haaland scoring less on scant supply and a depleted defence overly exposed.
Given the state of both teams heading into the 195th Manchester derby, a heavy victory in either direction feels very possible. Either City get picked off on the break -- as they were by Ruben Amorim's Sporting CP last month -- and malfunction amid humiliation, or Haaland puts away the first gift from the De Bruyne supply line and a team potentially bolstered by the returning Akanji, Foden and Mateo Kovacic suddenly have the multiple forward passing options to re-open old United wounds.
Even if it's the latter, City would still be in sticking-plaster territory. A squad that is small by Guardiola's design is overworked because of injuries and picking up more injuries because it's overworked. Even if United are put to the sword, there will be no relentless run of victories this season. In their manager's words, City are going to have to continue to "suffer" a long, hard winter.