Three key reasons why Man City are COLLAPSING

Pep Guardiola's Manchester City are collapsing.

There's no other way to describe what is going on at the Etihad other than a collapse. Man City, the team that has won the last four Premier League titles and two seasons ago secured English football's second-ever Treble, are in utter freefall.

City haven't won in their last six games, since they just about beat Southampton 1-0 a month ago at the end of October.

READ MORE: Man City set Champions League record with EMBARRASSING Feyenoord collapse

Since then they lost five straight games, the first time that has ever happened to Pep Guardiola. Tottenham beat them in the EFL Cup, then Bournemouth in the Premier League, then Sporting CP in the Champions League. Brighton and Spurs (again!) turned them over either side of the international break as well before Feyenoord came from 3-0 down to draw 3-3 at the Etihad.

A truly devastating month. And they've got Liverpool up next!

To say things are bad is an understatement. They're terrible. City are in desperate freefall and have gone from obvious favourites to win their fifth straight Premier League title to a side who, if current form persists, will slip out of the top four race altogether!

But what is going on? There are three key reasons:

1. Rodri is injured

When a player wins the Ballon d'Or, it's usually preceded by a large media campaign from their club. This is why Real Madrid hoover the award up (they're the kings of relentless PR for their players) and Premier League sides usually fall short.

However Man City have come up with the innovative idea to run Rodri's Ballon d'Or campaign in reverse like this was Tenet or something. Instead of leading up to the award telling everyone how great Rodri is, they've spent the time after the award playing like absolutely garbage in his absence to prove how much he had been carrying them.

That's an exaggeration, of course, but Rodri was absolutely fundamental to Pep Guardiola's system in Manchester and his injury has absolutely devastated their ability to function. They were already struggling to defend transitions even with Rodri in the side but without him they are simply getting annihilated on the break.

Rodri's injury during September's 2-2 draw with Arsenal felt like a portent of doom when it happened. And sure enough City's play was poor in the month after that and has been terrible in the month after that.

Man City need to hit the January transfer market hard because without a defensive midfielder this team is headed nowhere fast.

2. Ederson is terrible

Feyenoord's third goal in their dramatic comeback against Man City happened almost exclusively because Ederson left his penalty area to try and win a 50-50 headed duel with an opposing striker.

He lost the duel, of course, and with no one in the net Feyenoord found it easy to score. It was a big mistake and characteristic of the way Ederson keeps goal.

READ MORE: Man City crisis: Eight transfers to save the season

You never get the assurance that the Brazilian will save the day. If an opponent is streaming through 1-v-1, he lacks any of the aura that Thibaut Courtois, Alisson or Manuel Neuer possesses. You know they're going to score (unless a defender saves the day). Think back to last season's Champions League elimination - in fact, think of all the Champions League eliminations City have suffered in the face of their excellence and recall how Ederson has almost never bailed them out of anything.

Ederson is not the reason City are collapsing, but goalkeepers exist to mitigate their team's defensive problems, not to add to them. And Ederson is such a weak, manic presence in goal that he nearly always adds fuel to the fire instead of quenching the flames as you'd want a great goalie to do.

Entropy and Decay aka No Country For Old Men

Kevin de Bruyne is 33 years-old.

Ilkay Gundogan is 34 years-old.

Kyle Walker is 34 years-old.

Bernardo Silva is 30 years-old.

John Stones is 30 years-old.

If you were to talk about the key men in Pep Guardiola's Man City dynasty, the above quintet of players would, along with Rodri, Raheem Sterling, David Silva, Sergio Aguero and Erling Haaland, be the first names you thought of.

And they're all old.

Not only are they old, but with the exception of Gundogan who looked world-class last season, age had clearly been catching up with them for a while.

READ MORE: What is Man City’s biggest loss of all time?

And who can blame them? De Bruyne and Walker have both crossed the 700-game threshhold for club and country, while Gundogan and Silva are about a season away from the same mark. And while Stones is yet to crack 500 career games he's also injured like, all the time, so fatigue works differently with him.

These guys are tired. Not just physically but mentally too. They've been to hell and back in City blue multiple times. Gundogan and Stones joined in Pep's first season, De Bruyne a year earlier, then Silva and Walker arrived for Pep's sophomore campaign.

They've all been at City for the better part of a decade and their epic journey culminated with the Treble in 2023. The perfect ending for them.

But it wasn't the ending.

Txiki Begiristain did an excellent job assembling a monster squad for Pep Guardiola to challenge on all fronts for many years. However the key to success is constantly improving, and after City won the Treble their only signings were projects like Josko Gvardiol, Jeremy Doku and Mateus Nunes.

Meanwhile they let experienced heads like Ilkay Gundogan, Aymeric Laporte and Riyad Mahrez leave. Plus they sold academy prospect Cole Palmer who has since gone on exactly the kind of goalscoring tear that City are in desperate need of.

This summer they again sold poorly, letting their incredible striker Julian Alvarez go despite him being their only reliable attacking depth behind Erling Haaland. And in terms of transfers they picked up another prospect (Savinho) and re-signed Gundogan.

READ MORE: Man City are paying the price for their TERRIBLE transfer business

These are not the kind of bold moves that will reinvent the squad for their next challenge, that will give the team a new look and new direction.

Of their new signings since the Treble only Gvardiol can claim to be a success, the others are still wait-and-sees or outright flops like Kovacic who has never been anything like a reliable back-up for Gundogan or Rodri.

Meanwhile despite all the goals last season, we're still waiting for Phil Foden to take over the attack and replace De Bruyne. The young Englishman continues to play like a very talented maverick who avoids consistency like toddlers avoid bath-time. Which is a big problem as he was clearly the succession plan to arguably the most important and influential player in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson decade of Premier League football.

So they're still relying on their ageing core, who are now hanging about like the club closed 20 minutes ago and they're too drunk to realise it.

These flaws were all fairly apparent last season, too. But then Rodri was fit all season and De Bruyne returned halfway through the season like a wrestling hero and managed to stay fit for long enough to put one last Terminator-run together as City hauled back Arsenal and won their fourth-straight Premier League crown.

But he's spent.

They're all spent.

Completely cooked physically and mentally.

That's why Pep Guardiola scratched his head up after their 3-3 draw with Feyenoord. He's a perfectionist and control freak and the players are quite simply not executing properly. The game plan is clear, the players just can't do it. They don't have the legs or the heart.

What's more, everyone knows it.

Just run at them. They can't deal with it.

Pep is a genius, and City's ability to rouse themselves is obviously legendary, but the basis of that was always immense player quality which, if we're being honest, just isn't there anymore. And barring some great transfer activity in January it's hard to see where it will come from; there's no La Masia in Manchester!

The dream is collapsing.