Free-falling Manchester City in real danger of missing out on the top four

MANCHESTER // For Manchester City, the sense of stagnation gets worse and worse.

The champions have won just four of their past 15 games and it seems barely credible that they were level with Chelsea at the top of the table on New Year’s Day.

The gap now is 12 points to the leaders, who have a game in hand, and four to United.

Only the five-point gap to Southampton, their closest challengers for Uefa Champions League qualification (although Liverpool, another two points back, have a game in hand) offers any sort of consolation.

Here, at least, there was not the lethargy of the Crystal Palace defeat on Monday.

For 10 minutes, City seemed in control.

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But they were undone by a basic flaw, unable to handle the physicality of Marouane Fellaini as he punched holes again and again from a position on the United left.

City swapped personnel around but they could not respond, all four United goals coming down that flank.

Manuel Pellegrini praised how his side had started the game before “going to sleep” in conceding the 14th-minute equaliser.

“We didn’t defend well,” he said, “especially for their goals and they started creating a lot of chances.

“We must play not for 20 minutes but the whole game the same way.”

He conceded this is a recurring problem, but refused to blame his players.

“I always think it’s my responsibility,” Pellegrini said.

Nobody who played on the right side of the pitch for City is exempt from criticism.

Jesus Navas did not provide sufficient cover. His game these days, now that his crossing ability has deserted him, consists of little more than shuttle runs forward from the halfway line.

Pablo Zabaleta and Vincent Kompany, such an axis of strength last season, were both unnerved by Fellaini’s robustness. They also never got to grips with the flurries of Ashley Young, who, mystifyingly duped the pair repeatedly by his feint to cross with his left foot, something nobody can remember him ever doing.

Yaya Toure and Fernandinho were both at various times deputed to provide cover.

Neither could and Toure in particular was sluggish.

Kompany’s form this season has been a major concern, his confidence and judgement undermined by the failures of the midfield in front of him.

He was so discombobulated that he clattered into Daley Blind just before half time and was fortunate to be shown only a yellow card when Mark Clattenburg could easily have produced red.

The City captain had clutched his thigh moments before launching into that tackle and did not re-emerge for the second half, the victim of a groin injury.

He was replaced by Eliaquim Mangala, which meant Martin Demichelis shifting to the right side of central defence, but that did nothing to stem the flow.

Pellegrini insisted he is not concerned by the possibility of dropping out of the Champions League positions — “we must not make dramatics at this moment” — but so bad is their current form, so acute the sense of decay, that the possibility remains that they will continue to drift.