What is behind Man City's defensive woes?

As Manchester City look to bounce back against Tottenham following four successive defeats, we have done a statistics deep dive into the defensive problems contributing to the losses...

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

However, they are actually conceding around the same number of shots as they have in the past two seasons (7.8 per game this campaign vs 7.7 in both 2022-23 and 2023-24) – the quantity of shots they are conceding is not the problem.

In fact, only two sides - Bayern Munich and Getafe - are giving up fewer shots per-game in Europe's big five leagues this term.

The reason why they are conceding so many goals is down to the quality of chances they are giving up being excellent.

Guardiola's side are, in fact, 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 have given up so far are worth 0.155 xG on average. This is to say that, historically, teams score those chances 15.5% of the time and that is exactly what they are doing - City's opponents have a 15.1% conversion rate so far.

They have conceded one penalty, which in turn bumps up the xG per shot faced number, but they have still given up the best chances in Europe excluding penalties - 0.148 xG per shot faced.

So this is not a tale of the opponents being especially ruthless in front of goal and City just being a little unlucky. The defending Premier League champions are giving up excellent chances to sides - who have been very happy to take them.