For Manchester City's annual defeat on Wearyside, this year's embarrassment avoided last minute offside winners by little known South Koreans and instead opted for the more prosaic pattern of off-form important players, stumblingly predictable tactics, a winning goal from an ex-City player and bizarre substitutions to keep us all warm with the glow from our blushing cheeks. If you had sworn not to touch another drop of the hard stuff after hitting Christmas at full pace, then you'd have been swigging from the nearest bottle of spirits before the players had cleared their lumpen forms from the Stadium of Light pitch on this occasion.

- Heneage: Doubts creep up on Mancini’s City
- Mancini blasts 'soft' City

By the end of this truly exasperating game, we had the unedifying sight of the live-wire Carlos Tevez giving way to be substituted and City playing out the last few minutes with that well known and world-class strike partnership of Joleon Lescott and Joe Hart. Truly one had to pinch oneself and check that it wasn't Frank Clark down there in the dugout with his guitar and his mouth organ.

Mancini indeed stated afterwards that, "next year we don't come". He might, after this, be closer to the truth than he imagines. The malfunctioning blob that passed for City's shape in the last 30 minutes did nobody any justice, least of all those tasked with putting some shape and production into the play.

Take a bow then, in no particular order: David Silva and Yaya Toure in midfield, who after a good strong start, became overwhelmed and increasingly inaccurate. Vincent Kompany at the back, who got sidetracked by a 90 minute-long game of charades with referee Kevin Friend ("It's a dive, no it's a foul, no it's offside, no it begins with "y" for yellow, Oh I give up....). Sergio Aguero upfront, who had one of those days when that little baldy chap who plays for Kidderminster Harriers might have had more chance of putting the ball in the back of the net. And Hart, whose confidence, or superabundance of it, has been called into question on several occasions in the past months and who again here let in a shot which should have stayed out.

That it had been dispatched by the left foot of twinkle-toed Adam Johnson only confirmed that the gods of the absurd are alive and kicking and were today having their very own Christmas party. All of that, as usual on these occasions, leaves us with the heavily bandaged figure of Pablo Zabaleta, staggering manfully on after getting a set of flying studs to the forehead and seeing blood spurt from his head like the side fountains at Lourdes, and precious little else.

It is perhaps salient at this juncture, with the festivities of Christmas freshly behind us and the New Year hovering ominously into view, to ask ourselves one or two pertinent questions:

After last season's apparently stupendous Premier League season, is this one already turning into a rather weak copy thereof? City sit seven points adrift of a Manchester United side incapable of defending, and only four ahead of a Chelsea in total or partial turmoil (depending which segment of the season you take into account). Add to that heavily malfunctioning Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs sides and it begins to look like the title will go to the least poor side of this group. That, at the moment, is Manchester United. The point difference is nothing to write home about at this juncture, but does this City side look capable of going up a gear or two in 2013?

If the team is playing complacently (too many draws already, too many last-minute winners against poor sides), where does this lack of zest come from? How many wake up calls does one need before one wakes up? In my wife's case, approximately nine, but in the case of professional athletes, one or two should suffice. Mancini stated several times after bad results last year that opponents had been underestimated. Is this lesson still to be learned? Are we still to wear the look of the astonished when sides park the bus against City?

Where, after four months of investigating, has Mr Mancini's tactical thinkabout brought us? A 3-5-2 has been tried to varying degrees of embarrassment and confusion, while a winning shape has been dismantled in search of some distant footballing nirvana, which is turning out to be a purple cloud in the shape of a mulberry bush. The excellent Lescott-Kompany axis from last season has been broken up. Lescott is now suddenly very much a bit part performer, today his bit being three minutes playing upfront with Hart. The fullback soft shoe shuffle continues with Zabaleta, Gael Clichy, Micah Richards, Aleksandar Kolarov, Kolo Toure and Matija Nastasic tried there this season.

And Mancini. After three successive defeats to a Sunderland side that City used to find a pretty soft touch, will he be back next year despite the jokes to the contrary, or does the urbane Italian realise that that particular die is already cast?

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Email