'The sale of Palmer' - Man City handed clear transfer message amid Pep Guardiola nightmare scenario

Manchester City's struggles continued at they fell to defeat at the hands of Italian side Juventus in the Champions League - and Manchester Evening News readers in our comments section are wondering if the club have not been ambitious enough in the transfer market after their period of dominance.

City's run now looks dire, with just one win in ten games. Juventus put two past goalkeeper Ederson in a match where Pep Guardiola's side had the lion's share of possession, but failed to offer much threat.

The result leaves City with little hope of automatically qualifying for the round of 16 in the new-look Champions League table, and will likely instead face an additional play-off round - another fixture they could do without. Guardiola has denied that City's poor run is affecting the dressing room mentality, and insists that getting the basics right again will lift confidence.

Readers are now looking ahead to January and beyond to find solutions and rescue the season. Commenter Trublu writes: “The defence and midfield is too feeble and goals are going to be conceded. Going to take Rodri plus 6 new quality players to fix this, or else we will be in wilderness for years. The sale of Palmer looks a catastrophic event, plus others who were wrongly moved on.”

Reader Jono76 thinks that Pep's preferred small squad size has now become a liability: “Pep needs to find another way of playing. We can't keep playing tippy tappy football all around and across the box, and creating zilch. Teams are cutting through us at will. It really is embarrassing how their doing it with such regularity. Those of us old enough have seen this calamity before on many occasions. Playing with such a small squad as caught up with us all of a sudden. Pep,