Defensive fragility haunted Manchester City on Saturday as a Harry Kane-inspired Tottenham Hotspur snatched a 3-2 win to cast doubts over City's title credentials.
There is no denying that Tottenham pulled off a near-perfect performance, with their defence keeping City largely at bay and Kane linking up brilliantly with Son Heung-min to exploit Pep Guardiola's side on the counter.
However, it's also true that City defended atrociously. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, a worrying fact given that heading into the game they would have known exactly how Spurs would play.
The likes of Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo and Aymeric Laporte have been fantastic this season but they must learn from some pretty chastening moments.
Ruben Dias
Through inspirational social media posts and body-on-the-line defending, over recent months Dias has cultivated an image of an inspiring leader that everyone should look up to. Against Spurs, he was anything but.
Dejan Kulusevski's fourth-minute opener only came about because Dias stepped out too late in an attempt to play Son offside. Say what you like about the risks of playing such a high line against a team renowned for their quick and counter-attack suited players but if Guardiola instructed his defenders to step up as a unit, then Dias is at fault.
Dias later set up Spurs' second goal, his poor attempt at a headed clearance falling straight to Ryan Sessegnon in the left channel. Gifting Spurs the ball in such a dangerous position set the City back four into panic, so much so that seconds later - when Dias moved towards the ball - no-one tracked the run of Kane who was left unmarked to convert Son's cross.
Nine times out of 10 Dias deals with the initial long ball properly but his needlessly last-ditch header put City under real pressure and Spurs scored.
Joao Cancelo
Cancelo has been a revelation at left-back for City this season but he did not cover himself with glory for Spurs' second and third goals, both scored by Kane.
Guardiola has said in the past that the Portuguese full-back, as brilliant as he is, could still work on the defensive side of his game. That was apparent on Saturday.
After the aforementioned poor header from Dias, Cancelo spotted that Kane was starting to make a run towards the penalty area from deep. Furthermore, he could see that Laporte was occupied and that the Spaniard could not see Kane, so he knew that the England captain was his responsibility.
Despite being aware of the threat, Cancelo started ball-watching and allowed Kane to ghost past him. When the cross came in, Kane was a good two yards ahead of Cancelo - who had inexplicably stopped in his tracks - so was free to stroke the ball past Ederson.
City's number 27 didn't fare much better with Kane's match-winner either. After pressing high but failing to nick the ball off Kulusevski as Spurs built up their attack, Cancelo failed to return to his position quickly enough, affording the Swedish winger acres of space to run into.
You could argue that someone should have covered for Cancelo, but ultimately if he is going to step up he either has to win the ball or do enough to disrupt the attack.
When Cancelo did eventually catch up, his attempts to tackle Kulusevski or block his cross - which Kane headed home - were half-hearted at best.
Without wishing to sound too much like Fabian Delph, one of the basics of a full-back's job is to stop crosses getting into the box and Cancelo didn't do it.
Freedom for Kane
Heading into the game City's defenders will have known exactly how Kane was going to operate, yet they managed to do very little to stop him from orchestrating play.
Admittedly, Kane was so good that Rodri et al could not get near him but there was very little pressure placed on Kane whenever he dropped deep off the frontline.
Dias has made a habit this season of jumping out of the backline to pressure ball receivers. It has been an effective tactic as he goes all in - he'll win the ball, commit a foul or do enough to disrupt the attacking team's flow.
Doing that against an extremely quick Spurs attack might have been risky but it was surely worth a try. Instead, every time Kane dropped back he found himself with plenty of time on the ball.
Do you think that Dias and Cancelo will recover from their 'off' days? Follow our City Is Ours writer Alex Brotherton on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
