Man City clash too soon for Leicester keeper Schmeichel

Bacary Sagna confesses Manchester City did not give 100 per cent in their 4-2 defeat at Leicester and must show more desire to get their season back on course when they host Watford on Wednesday.

In 2015-16, Mahrez created a chance for Vardy every 128 minutes they spent on the pitch, with five of those resulting in goals.

Guardiola has only lost three successive league games as a manager once before – this was in May 2015 as Bayern Munich boss (vs Bayer 04 Leverkusen, FC Augsburg and Sport-Club Freiburg).

As ever, though, Guardiola was protective about the performance of his players, saying: “I’m not disappointed with them”. I believe that he doesn’t forbid his players to tackle.

“I want us to play like we did against Chelsea, which is not a long time ago”, Guardiola continued. But normally when you play well you win tackles but after four minutes, at 2-0 (down), the mind of the players is ‘what is going on? “I feel what I feel” – and raised eyebrows after being made aware City had not won a single tackle in the opening 35 minutes of the contest. “We are trying to be a little more aggressive in the tackle, as it happens, it is just not going too well”.

After winning his first 10 games following his summer arrival, Guardiola’s City have now won just four of their last 15 matches in all competitions and slipped four points behind leaders Arsenal on Saturday evening.

He said: “I want to play the football I feel”.

Despite his heroics for Leicester, Vardy had never scored a hat-trick for them and his last treble had been for minor league Fleetwood in 2012.

“If I can not do that, the chairman will decide”.

“Manuel (Pellegrini) came here to play this kind of football with these kind of players and we have to try that”.

The most obvious thing is to move one of his two strikers back into more of a midfield role, which in turn would allow him to drop his central duo back to more defensive duties in front of what has quickly become a porous back four.

Manchester City, a side who know about relegation 12 months after lifting a title, needed a result after losing the game, and two crucial players, Aguero and Fernandinho against Chelsea last week.

City have flitted between a back three and a back four since Guardiola succeeded Manuel Pellegrini as manager, but he said: “It is not about the system”.

He completed his first hat-trick since his non-league days at Fleetwood Town from the narrowest of angles thanks to a careless back pass from John Stones.

“To get points is important for the table but this is just a little step because now we have to think about the next match against Bournemouth and then Stoke”, said coach Claudio Ranieri.

“So, I’m thinking what I have to do to help them without changing because I believe in my way, with adapting to the peculiarities of the league”.