Pep Guardiola must address 'soft' Man City defence to kick unhealthy habit

Manchester City have a problem. That may be an overly negative view to take after a 4-2 come-from-behind win which saw Erling Haaland score his first hat-trick for City in only his four league game. But the fact that City had to fight back - even if impressively so - from two goals down against Crystal Palace should not be ignored.

Saturday's win gave City an unwanted statistic to mull over; the Blues have now fallen two goals behind in four of their last six Premier League games.

Of course, it's often not how you start, but how you finish that determines the outcome of a match. In those four games City ended up drawing 2-2 with West Ham, beating Aston Villa 3-2 on the remarkable final day of last season, drawing 3-3 with Newcastle last weekend and defeating Palace 4-2 on Saturday.

READ MORE: Man City player ratings vs Crystal Palace as Erling Haaland smashes hat-trick

City clearly have remarkable powers of recovery, something that Pep Guardiola will rightly identify as a positive and a quality that will serve them well. His tactical tweaks - relieving Kyle Walker of his central playmaking duties, pushing Bernardo Silva out to the right wing and shifting City's shape to something of a 3-2-2-3 - plus the performances of Haaland and Bernardo in particular combined to produce an excellent second-half showing.

But the reality is this: it is simply not sustainable, nor conducive to success, to keep handing opponents two-goal leads.

While City's new habit hasn't hurt them too badly, it has now earned them an unwanted reputation. Get in City's faces - particularly early on in games - disrupt their rhythm and have a solid defensive plan and you've got a decent chance of taking points off them, no matter how hard they throw the