Calamitous Manchester City crash towards the unthinkable as PSG strike critical Champions League blow | OneFootball

Now Manchester City are found on the wrong side of the dotted line. With a game to go, they have sunk to their lowest point. Crowned officially the best team in Europe 19 months ago, the standings say they are now only the 25th finest in this competition. Pep Guardiola believes a table with a surreal look tells a truth. “Of course,” he said. “It’s the points we had.”

City were not merely beaten by Paris Saint-Germain. They were battered, their flaws highlighted by the team who had looked the Champions League’s greatest underachievers. City were overpowered, overrun, overcome. Collapsing, capitulating, they met their match in Paris. “They were better,” said Guardiola. “They were quicker, faster, they win the duels with the ball.”

With a home game against Club Brugge, City can still salvage a play-off place. “If not, we don’t deserve it,” added Guardiola. Even if his side do prevail, if the continent’s finest used to be scared at the prospect of playing them in knockout ties, now they could be salivating. “In the big stages, the big teams, we struggle,” Guardiola admitted. “We have to accept it.”

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Manchester City slipped even further into the mire (Getty Images)

PSG were under still more pressure, so theirs was a seminal, sensational comeback to cap a spectacular match. But for City, it was an unwanted encore, déjà vu all over again in the French capital. This was a ninth match this season in which they led without winning. A team with a solitary point from their last four Champions League games would have nine if they could hold on to an advantage. They were a goal up against Sporting CP, three to the good against Feyenoord. They went 2-0 up in Paris and had their lead cancelled out in the space of five minutes. They creaked until Joao Neves cracked them open. He was a symbolic figure: City looked too old and too slow as they lacked the zip and zest of a younger PSG in the centre of the park and a 20-year-old midfielder helped decide it, before Goncalo Ramos clinched it.

Rodri was at the Parc des Princes, but City missed him as he sat in the stands. Yet such was PSG’s dominance that City could have required two Rodris to halt Neves, Vitinha and Fabian Ruiz. Instead, Kevin de Bruyne and Mateo Kovacic looked dead on their feet when replaced. It got worse without them. City were limited to 36 percent of possession, Guardiola animated even by his standards, his histrionics a sign of his dissatisfaction. “In football, everything happens in the middle,” he said. His side lost that battle. “We could not have the ball,” he lamented.

Because the scoreline only tells part of the story. Four goals could easily have been eight. City were saved by a goal-line clearance - Josko Gvardiol denying Fabian Ruiz - and by the offside flag when Achraf Hakimi slotted into an empty net. Ousmane Dembele very nearly scored his second, rattling the woodwork with a rasping, rising shot having earlier turned home Bradley Barcola’s pass.

In a touchline battle between former Barcelona teammates, it first seemed as though Guardiola had made the pivotal substitution, as an unusually productive Jack Grealish scored one goal and made another. Yet Luis Enrique’s gambit of introducing Dembele proved decisive. He added incision to their first-half excellence and another replacement, Ramos, struck in injury time.

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Bradley Barcola helped PSG launch a thrilling fightback (Getty Images)

t amounted to a magnificent advertisement for 26th against 24th, the positions they occupied at kick-off. Previous failures rendered it compelling. The two teams made it coruscating. PSG made for worthy wi1nners. Now a draw against Stuttgart will confirm their progress. They grasped their destiny. A team who had felt luckless in this competition looked unfortunate to be 2-0 down. They responded, brilliantly. “This fighting spirit,” said Luis Enrique. “We never give up."

“PSG are a lot better than I thought,” admitted Grealish. He underestimated the winners. Briefly, it seemed his confidence was justified. If the sense was that Grealish was brought at half-time to add the control City had been missing, it instead yielded the anarchy of four goals in 15 minutes. The £100m man had about as decisive a burst as he has had in a City shirt and yet it counted for nothing. His only previous City goal since 2023 was a penalty against Salford.

An unexpected, and unexpectedly incisive, foray from Manuel Akanji took him to the byline. He found Bernardo Silva, whose shot was blocked by Gianluigi Donnarumma but Grealish was on hand to hook in the rebound. Then Grealish’s deflected cross fell invitingly for Erling Haaland to score his second goal since signing his nine-and-a-half-year contract.

PSG, meanwhile, ploughed a different furrow, without a true No 9. “They have an extra man in the middle with the false nine and that’s why it was difficult to cope,” said Guardiola. They went on to score four goals. They had a substitute on the scoresheet, Dembele slotting in a shot from Bradley Barcola’s cutback. The catalytic Barcola found the net with the rebound after Desire Doue curled a shot against the bar. The previous time City visited the Parc des Princes, they faced arguably the most star-studded forward line ever assembled, in Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Neymar. Last night, they struggled against the French trio of Dembele, Doue and Barcola.

City had lost in Lisbon, been turned over in Turin. Now they were put under attack in Paris. Their hosts were relentless. Joao Neves had missed a headed chance at the back post in the opening minutes. He scored one at the end, plunging forward to meet Vitinha’s free-kick and plant his header past Ederson. When Ramos then placed a shot beyond the goalkeeper, City had conceded 13 goals in their last four Champions League games. It is evidence, if nothing else, of why they have signed two young defenders this week. But neither was eligible here and perhaps neither will get to play in Europe this season, because now City are on the brink.