Man City sent stark Omar Marmoush warning as transfer reality laid bare

Manchester City drew with Brentford to halt a fresh winning run, amid signs that Pep Guardiola was turning the champions' fortunes around in the Premier League - and Manchester Evening News readers in our comments section say they can see familiar failings that can only be solved by bringing in new faces.

City went ahead by two thanks to Phil Foden, but conceded twice in the last 15 minutes of the game to throw away a promising lead. Yoane Wissa halved the deficit before a Christian Norgaard header in injury time dashed hopes of making it three League wins on the trot.

Guardiola singled out Josko Gvardiol and Stefan Ortega for faults that led to goals, but ended up praising them after the game. He said: "How good he played. He played an incredible game. We talked about one action but it's the same with Ortega - I said how good he played, how good he passed to Erling, how satisfied I am with especially these two players."

"They put a lot of players there. We were not close because we were tired and after Norgaard arrived," Guardiola said. "And our holding midfielders do not have the skills to defend these type of balls because we have another type of player right now. At the end we could not defend. I'm incredibly satisfied with the performance. Of course we are sad because we were close to winning and could not win but sometimes it happens."

Fans saw recent issues flaring up again, despite Guardiola's positive response. Reader MenTech says: “For every game without Marmoush, his fees increases by £5m. Pay up now please. We used to bring in attackers to kill off games. Now, we're relying on a 34-year-old midfielder to defend our slender lead. I don't really blame our defenders as they're never used to defending for 90