Pep Guardiola makes a stark confession as Manchester City are hammered by Tottenham

James Maddison celebrated his 28th birthday with a double before Pedro Porro and Brennan Johnson also got on the scoresheet as City’s recent woes followed them back to Manchester, with City now in danger of falling a massive eight points behind leaders Liverpool if they beat Southampton on Sunday.

Guardiola was honest in his verdict on his team, as he admitted they now have to stand up to the biggest slump of his entire management career.

“We are fragile at the moment, we could not defend properly. We started well, struggled to score and then conceded. Then situation is more difficult,” said Guardiola.

“I’ve been here as a player, maybe not as a manager, first three games at Barcelona we lost. The only chance we have is stay there. Last eight years the results have been there, it would be a mistake to change the approach.

“There are not fairytales in life and sport, sometimes you have to live through these situations. You have to accept it. You can’t blame each other, stay together, continue to do what we have done.

“Run away? Absolutely not, we have to stand up more than ever. What will define us is when we fail, we stand up and face it.

“I don’t know what will happen this season, but not for one second will I not believe in these players. There is no team in the world that can sustain success for eight, nine, ten years in a row.

“Of course everything is not fine, but what we try to do is analyse it, let’s go to next game and see what happens.”

City defender Kyle Walker struggled to find words to sum up his mood as his former club stormed to a win in Manchester.

“It’s hard to stand here and speak about it when I haven’t properly digested it yet. I’ve stood here when we won titles so I’ll stand here for defeats too,” he said.

This is the most frustrating thing as a defender. I don’t care about scoring goals, I’m bothered about clean sheets and we’re not doing that. You have to go back to the basics and get a clean sheet. If we concede four goals at home we have to score five.

“It’s not just the back four, five or six – it’s all 11 players on the pitch.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve lost confidence together. I’ve spent eight years with this group. You lose confidence as a team but we have to remember what we’ve achieved together. What we’ve achieved in the past means nothing, it’s history. We have one team above us doing really well. We’ll keep fighting to the end as we always do. The best way to turn this round is on Tuesday. Hopefully the mojo comes back and we see the normal City from the past eight seasons.

“Your powers don’t just go. We know our qualities and weaknesses. You get a win, you get your confidence and we’re back to how we used to feel.”

City now face a Champions League game against Feyenoord on Tuesday night before a crunch game against Liverpool at Anfield next Sunday, with Walker sounding an early rallying cry.