Man City dressing room advice hints at damage last season has done

Manchester City have lost twice in a week and a season that promised so much a few days ago is now in danger of veering of course.

Manchester City thought the sleepless nights were behind them. On Monday, Josko Gvardiol described how he couldn't get his head down last season as everything around them unravelled in a winter of discontent. Pep Guardiola said he couldn't even eat, never mind sleep, as he worked out how to put the season back on track.

Things are nowhere near as bad 12 months on, but after back-to-back defeats to Newcastle and Bayer Leverkusen this week, alarm bells will just be beginning to ring for the Blues. They have now lost three of their last seven games in all competitions and have tasted defeat in just over a quarter of their matches last season.

This time last year, City had lost five in a row and were in the middle of a 13-game run that would produce just one victory. Nobody expects it to get anywhere near as bad now, but this week's defeats have been damaging and will carry uncomfortable echoes for many of the squad.

Guardiola made 10 changes from the side that lost at Newcastle and saw his team play like a bunch of strangers against Bayer Leverkusen. He admitted after the game that he had got it wrong. The pressure is now on to find a response against Leeds this weekend, but Tijjani Reijnders has urged his teammates not to be too concerned after a deflating week.

"We should not panic now," he said after the defeat to Leverkusen. "Of course, losing two times in a row is not a good thing, but we know there are still plenty of chances this season and we have to go game to game.

"Mentally, we have to be ready. We know what we can do and what we showed before. It’s on us to do that again. Don’t lose confidence because we have a lot of quality in the team."

Guardiola took the blame for a disjointed performance, but would have a right to be disappointed with the squad players who stepped in on a Champions League night and underperformed.

By the midway point of the second half, he had changed half the outfield starters but to no avail. Reijnders missed the post-match debrief in the dressing room as he was selected for doping protocols and he was one of the few to survive the full 90 minutes.

There is an argument that making so many changes robbed City of their usual fluency, but it wasn't one Reijnders was willing to embrace as standards slipped.

"You’re not playing a lot of times with each other, but we’re playing for Manchester City so it shouldn’t be a problem because if you play here you have quality," he said. "We have to show it, it was too little today what we showed."

The defeat has also raised the stakes for matchday six, when City make the familiar trip to Madrid to face Real at the Bernabeu. It is the fifth successive season the two teams have met, but the first time it has come this early in the competition.

What should have been a routine game for both clubs might now carry a little extra baggage. City will be out of the top eight by the time they kick off at the Bernabeu on December 10 and another defeat will give them work to do in January to avoid the play-off round for the second year in a row.

For now, Reijnders is trying to avoid thinking that far ahead, with three Premier League games to come before then and the gap to Arsenal already up to seven points.

"I don’t think it will put extra pressure [on Madrid]," he said. "We know what we can expect there from Madrid. But it’s in a couple of weeks, so first let’s be ready for Saturday."