Manchester City: Latest Loss to Swansea City Evidence of a Larger Problem

When Manchester City went down 1-0 to Swansea City over the weekend, many called it an upset.

Which, to some extent, it was.

After all, City were sitting atop the table and appeared the favorites for the championship, while Swansea sat midfield and were not making any significant headway.

However, this was no upset in the usual sense of the word.

Upsets are uncommon.

Manchester City losing on the road is not.

For all their success of 2012, which may still yield a league title, the Citizens are simply not good enough away from home to justify their claim as the best in the league.

At Etihad, City have had 14 games for 14 wins and its numbers are very impressive.

They've scored in every home match—chalking up 42 goals at an average of three goals per game.

At the same time, they've conceded just six goals and have held their opponents scoreless on 64.3 percent of occasions.

They have been simply dominant.

Yet away from home, the consistency simply isn't there.

I say consistency because we've seen firsthand just how good Manchester City can be on the road—5-1 over Tottenham and 6-1 over Manchester United come to mind.

However, they've mixed that with losses to Chelsea, Sunderland, Everton and now Swansea, as well as draws to Fulham, Liverpool and West Bromwich Albion.

Add in to that mix the one-goal wins that they've had on the road against Bolton, QPR, Wigan and Aston Villa and the evidence starts to become more clear.

Games that City should be winning, they're not.

Their numbers away from home are a long way from the ones that we see in front of their faithful—failing to score in over a quarter of their matches and conceding 70 percent of their total goals for the year.

The mid-table teams like Swansea, West Brom and Aston Villa should be beaten by a genuine championship contender like Manchester City.

And until they can find the consistency they have at home in their matches on the road, they cannot be counted as the team to beat in the English Premier League.

Wins have to come from all sorts of places over a long 38 weeks.

Unfortunately for Manchester City, however, they're just not coming away from home.

And with away matches against Stoke City, Arsenal, Norwich and Newcastle to come, it may not be as easy a fix as it seems for the Citizens.

I truly believe they are one of the strongest teams in the competition, but until they find the consistency needed to take out the title, they cannot be considered the best.

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