Weekend Review: City’s troubles continue as Barcelona suffer another slump

Manchester City and Barcelona had a weekend to forget as they both suffered disappointing losses. 

If you are a betting and football man, last weekend must have been a difficult one because there’s a likely possibility that your team failed to win and you lost a few quid. 

It was an unprecedented weekend as almost all the favourites failed to win their games. No one saw the results coming as the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Arsenal, Juventus, AC Milan and many other big teams went winless last weekend. 

Real Madrid played out a 3-3 draw against Rayo Vallecano, while Juventus played a 2-2 draw against Venezia. In England, Liverpool played a 2-2 draw against Fulham but Arsenal could not capitalise as they could only manage a goalless draw at home to Everton. 

These are just some of the few shocking results from last weekend, but the two biggest shocks of the weekend came on Sunday.

We take a look at the two results. 

Man Utd compound Man City misery 

The biggest game of the weekend took place at the Etihad Stadium as Man City hosted Man United in a highly-anticipated Manchester derby. 

It was a clash with everything riding into it as both teams were on a worrying run of form and needed to arrest their slump. 

For City, they were winless in their last ten games in all competitions while United came into the clash with two defeats in their last two league games, including a 3-1 home defeat against Nottingham Forest. 

But despite their worrying form, Pep Guardiola’s men were still the favourites against Ruben Amorim’s team. 

The Cityzens started well dominating possession and putting Man Utd on the back foot. Although it took a little bit of time, City’s dominance finally paid off in the 36th minute as Josko Gvardiol headed home a deflected cross from Kevin De Bruyne. 

City took a 1-0 lead into the break and were in control following the restart. But there was a sense that as long as it remained 1-0, United had a chance. 

That was exactly what happened as United drew level with two minutes to go, courtesy of a penalty from Bruno Fernandes after Ahmad Diallo was hacked down in the box. 

But that was not the end of it as Diallo capitalised on City’s failure to deal with a long ball from Andre Onana, slotting past Ederson for United’s winner. 

It was a victory against the run of play but much needed for Amorim, who had made a big call by leaving out Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho from the squad. 

As for City and Guardiola, there is no light at the end of the tunnel for them, at least for now, as they now have one win in their last 11 games. 

Barcelona fail to arrest slump 

A season that started on a promising note for Barcelona is now looking like a hard nut to crack for the Catalan giants. 

Hansi Flick’s men had the chance to go four points clear of Real Madrid when they took Leganes on Sunday night. 

However, they failed to capitalise as they suffered an embarrassing 1-0 loss at home. Sergio Gonzalez’s fourth minute strike was all Leganes needed to seal an unlikely victory. Despite playing the rest of the game in the opposition’s half, Barca failed to create any clear cut chance. 

The Blaugrana were a shadow of themselves and deservedly lost. With the loss, Barca remain one point ahead of Real Madrid, having played a game more. 

But more importantly, they have now won one of their last six league games for Barcelona (L3, D2, W1), picking five points from a possible 18.