All good things must come to an end.
Manchester City’s 32-match unbeaten run in the Premier League is over after a lacklustre performance at in-form Bournemouth.
After Wednesday’s Carabao Cup defeat Tottenham, Pep Guardiola bemoaned having just 13 fit players, but he was still able to name a strong eleven to face Bournemouth – Erling Haaland, Ederson, Phil Foden, Kyle Walker, Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva featured from the start.
But it just did not click for the Premier League champions, who were unbeaten across their previous 21 fixtures against Bournemouth, and the busy calendar might be just starting to catch up with them.
Conceding early was far from ideal with Antoine Semenyo putting the hosts in front after nine minutes and the half ended with Bournemouth fans chanting “ole” following every completed pass.
City were carved open when the Cherries doubled their lead through Evanilson and it took until the 80th minute for the visitors to register an attempt on target, albeit a tame one from Erling Haaland.
They did half the deficit two minutes later through Josko Gvardiol, who scored his sixth goal in seven away Premier League games.
Haaland thought he had grabbed an equaliser in stoppage time but Mark Travers saved and the Norwegian’s follow-up struck the post.
Losing is not something City are accustomed to – it is the first time they have lost successive games across all competitions since September 2023 and the first time they have tasted defeat in the league since December 2023.
A trip to Porto, managed by incoming Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim, is next up for City in the Champions League on Tuesday.
