Pep Guardiola and supporters may have to embrace the chaos of new-look Man City

There were a number of occasions last season when Pep Guardiola insisted that Manchester City were not that great when it came to playing on the transition.

His words tended to come before and after matches against the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Southampton, all sides who thrive on quickly turning defence into attack. Pep said City didn't have the players to match that, so his solution was simple: keep the ball, slow the game down and don't give the opposition chance to counter.

Fast-forward to Sunday and City were ripped apart by Newcastle's counter-attacks. While City did regain their composure after half-time to fight back from 1-3 down to secure a point, in the first half the hosts looked like scoring with every attack.

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After the game Guardiola acknowledged that Newcastle manager Eddie Howe got his tactics spot on and that attackers Allan Saint-Maximin and Miguel Almiron attacked City in the way that hurts them most, staying high up the field and breaking when City's defence aren't set or properly positioned to cope.

The boss also argued that City could have combatted the hosts' brave approach better by keeping hold of the ball better in the final third, by making more passes instead of always looking to play the killer ball as quickly as possible.

A key element of his footballing philosophy is building attacks in the right way. If you attack patiently and methodically then you'll have players in the right positions to react should possession be lost. If you take the ball forward at 100mph then it will come back at you at 100mph.

Pep's analysis begs the question of why didn't he think of that before or even during the game? There