Pep Guardiola’s worst losing streaks

• Pep Guardiola has lost four successive games for first time in managerial career
• His City team suffered three straight defeats twice
• Guardiola also endured winless stretch at end of 2014/15 season with Bayern Munich

They say you’ll never forget where you were the day Pep Guardiola endured the first four-game losing streak of his managerial career.

Since hanging up his boots and pipping Jose Mourinho to the Barcelona job in 2008, Guardiola has been associated with one thing and one thing only: winning.

He’s done a lot of it.

Guardiola’s unprecedented success in three lands renders any failure that little bit sweeter for those simply fed up with the manager’s unrelenting ability to win. Those folk will be cherishing the current situation with Manchester City navigating through a rut they haven’t endured since Stuart Pearce was marauding the Sky Blues’ dugout.

The Spaniard hasn’t been immune to point droughts and form slumps in the past, but never before has Guardiola found losing so hard to avoid.

Here are the worst losing streaks of Guardiola’s managerial career.

30 October – 9 November 2024* (4 games)

This is not only just a historically poor run for Guardiola, but Man City, too. The Cityzens’ four successive losses is their worst streak in over 18 years.

Fortunately, City’s recent malaise has arrived in three different competitions so their quest to claim a fifth Premier League title hasn’t been compromised just yet. However, defeats away from home to Bournemouth and Brighton & Hove Albion mean the perennial champions are five points adrift of league leaders Liverpool after 11 games.

Their demise kick-started with a Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham Hotspur as City’s woes in N17 reared their ugly head once again. However, this was a contest and competition Guardiola would have been willing to sacrifice given the demanding nature of their schedule. After losing 2-1 at Bournemouth, City failed to control the transition in Lisbon as Viktor Gyokeres ran amok in Sporting CP’s 4-1 triumph over Guardiola’s side.

It initially seemed as if City would avoid a fourth-straight defeat at the AMEX Stadium when Erling Haaland put the Cityzens into a first-half lead, but Brighton roared back after the restart and scored twice in quick succession to down the champions. It was the first time Haaland had lost a Premier League match he’d scored in and only the fourth time Guardiola has lost back-to-back Premier League games.

Up next? Bogey team Tottenham. City haven’t lost three successive league outings since February-March 2016.

2-12 May 2015 (3 games)

Guardiola never lost more than two successive games at Barcelona, even when his side relinquished control of Spain to Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid in 2011/12.

The Spaniard took the Bayern Munich job following a year’s sabbatical in 2013 and quickly enjoyed success in Bavaria. In his second season, Bayern had wrapped up another Bundesliga title by the end of April which allowed Guardiola to focus on the DFB-Pokal and Champions League during the final month of the campaign.

As a result, the Spaniard rotated heavily as Bayern were beaten in the league by Bayer Leverkusen before Pepe Reina’s 13th-minute sending-off played a big role in their defeat to Augsburg. In between those fixtures, Bayern travelled to Pep’s old stomping ground for the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals.

The year prior, Guardiola sacrificed midfield control in favour of a 4-2-4 which allowed Real Madrid to run riot on the counter-attack at the Allianz Arena, thumping Bayern 4-0 which saw them into the final. On this occasion, Pep’s tactical overthought wasn’t so costly as he changed tack soon after realising his mistake. He left his back three on an island against Barcelona’s all-time great ‘MSN’ frontline, but Barca’s three goals didn’t arrive until late on in the contest. Still, Bayern’s 3-0 defeat left them with a mountain they couldn’t quite summit in the return leg.

They won 3-2 in Munich, thus succumbing on aggregate, and would then lose their third-straight Bundesliga game to Freiburg away from home.

4-10 April 2018 (3 games)

The 2017/18 Manchester City team is regarded among the greatest in Premier League history, but Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool halted their Champions League campaign from progressing beyond the last eight.

City were shellshocked under the lights at Anfield, losing 3-0 after the Reds enjoyed an opening 30-minute blitz. Guardiola’s side threatened a comeback in the return leg as Gabriel Jesus scored inside two minutes, but the Reds settled and eventually overturned their deficit on the night to win 2-1 at the Etihad.

That loss condemned City to their third-straight defeat in all competitions. In between the two quarter-final legs, Guardiola’s side missed the chance to wrap up the Premier League title against bitter rivals Manchester United when they let a 2-0 first-half lead slip. Paul Pogba scored twice for the Red Devils before Chris Smalling completed a remarkable comeback for the visitors.

City were confirmed champions the following weekend when United were stunned by West Brom at Old Trafford.

29 May – 15 August 15 2021 (3 games)

We’ve had to dig out a three-game losing streak that spans three competitions and two seasons to remind us all that Guardiola is indeed at least half-human.

Man City had a golden opportunity to end their Champions League drought when they faced domestic rivals Chelsea in the 2021 final, but Guardiola went all weird with his team selection and was outthought by Thomas Tuchel throughout the 90 minutes in Porto as the Blues claimed a 1-0 victory.

City, who regained the Premier League title from Liverpool in 2020/21, were then beaten by Leicester in the Community Shield thanks to Kelechi Iheanacho’s late penalty before opening their 2021/22 Premier League account away at Tottenham – and you know how those contests usually end.

On this occasion, an underwhelming City fell to a 1-0 defeat in N17 after Son Heung-min expertly rounded off a slick Lilywhite transition. City’s opening ten league games that season consisted of two draws and another defeat, but they won 23 of their next 28 fixtures to edge Klopp’s Reds to the title.