Pep Guardiola Doubts Manchester City's Title Chances After 4-0 Loss to Everton

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola suggested his side were out of the Premier League title race after a crushing 4-0 defeat to Everton on Sunday.

Guardiola watched on as his team were humbled at Goodison Park and now appears to have conceded City's chances in his first season in England. The gap to league leaders Chelsea is 10 points, and the Spaniard said that is too much.

Per BBC Sport, Guardiola said: "Yes. Ten is a lot of points. At the end of the season, we our going to evaluate our level and how our performance was, how the coach was, how the players were. After that we are going to decide."

Guardiola may argue that City's performance deserved more, but for supporters, the Everton loss would surely just have represented the latest example of some sloppy defending.

Indeed, it is in defence where the former Barcelona boss has faced his biggest challenge this season. Opposition teams in the Premier League have arguably gained confidence from each other in the way they can exploit what is a clear weakness in the side.

In John Stones, City may have a player with promise and good technical ability to move the ball fluidly in an attacking sense, but as a defender, he is coming up short. It would perhaps be too kind to suggest his hefty £47.5 million price tag is to blame for continued mistakes.

Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Comparisons can be made with Chelsea and how their manager Antonio Conte has dealt with a player of similar attributes—David Luiz.

Conte's 3-4-3 lineup has protected the Brazil international. Luiz is not the best centre-back in the game, but because the team around him are working so well as a defensive unit, he has not been left exposed on too many occasions this season.

Playing as the central man in a back three, Luiz has looked reinvigorated under Conte and rarely appears to get caught one-on-one.

Michael Regan/Getty Images

Conte and Guardiola have had the same period of time to impose their tactics and formations on their players, but it is clear that the Italian has got his message through better.

Per Andrew Murray of FourFourTwo magazine, defensive structure is paramount to the Catalan's method. He noted: "What Guardiola wants above all else is a defence that moves as one—a self-contained organism that suffocates opposition attacks by pressing high."

However, this has not happened at City. Additionally, his decision to sign goalkeeper Claudio Bravo and ship Joe Hart out on loan to Serie A side Torino continues to backfire on Guardiola.

As Iain Macintosh for ESPN FC noted: "Bravo seems to carry all the physical presence of a half-remembered dream."

Bravo hasn't appeared to breed confidence in his defenders since his move from Barcelona, but it looks unlikely Guardiola will turn to understudy Willy Caballero on a regular basis.

Parody account Sporf were quick to highlight the stopper's impact for City on Twitter:

Their league rivals will likely seize on City's latest defeat, their fifth of the campaign, and continue to put pressure on them defensively.

Tottenham Hotspur, their next Premier League opponents, are flowing with confidence throughout the team and should relish the chance to press high on Bravo and the shaky back line.

How Guardiola shapes his defence in future weeks could determine if his side are to make up any ground on Chelsea and the leading pack, or whether his debut season in England will be marked down as a spectacular flop.