The nerves at Manchester City are on edge. The defeat against Brighton (2-1) has caused the worst streak in the coaching career of Pep Guardiola, who had never had four consecutive defeats.
Even Erling Haaland, who opened the scoring in the 23rd minute, saw his spectacular streak in the Premier League cut short. Whenever he scored the first goal of the game, City did not lose: in the previous 46 occasions, they had had 40 wins and six draws.
The crisis at the Etihad is total and the Norwegian striker ended up losing his nerve in the 98th minute, with 2-1 down and the game about to end. Bernardo finished, Verbruggen caught and, immediately afterwards, City’s ‘9’ was involved in a sort of judo fight with Van Hecke.
First it was the Dutch center back who grabbed Haaland, but then it was the Norwegian who, already standing, grabbed the Brighton center back by the collar of his shirt, dragging him and lifting him a hand’s breadth off the ground.
Several players from both teams immediately joined in trying to separate them and try to calm things down. Luckily, things didn’t get any worse. Finally, Samuel Barrott, the referee of the match, solved it by showing a yellow card to each one.
The incident also caught the attention of Pep Guardiola. The Spanish coach also referred to the clash that affected the behavior of the Brighton centre-back, with whom Pep had an exchange of words after the game: “He was strong with Erling and I told him: ‘When Erling confronts you, stay standing, don’t you throw yourself on the grass’. But he played a very good game…”, assured the Spaniard.
