ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER — Pep Guardiola ruefully acknowledged that, when your team is in a slump such as the one being endured by his Manchester City players, everyone but you has all the answers.

All those trophies count for very little in the immediate post-mortem of a 4-0 hammering at home to Tottenham that means City have lost five games in succession across all competitions and each of their past three in the Premier League.

“Listen, when you lose 0-4, all the comments — ‘you missed this, you missed that’ — can [be true],” he said. “But I don’t have the feeling that at 0-1 we reacted really badly or in the second half.

“At 0-3, [it] was our best moments until the last moment that we conceded the fourth. I think the team was good, they created the chances and we were there but, unfortunately, we could not do it.”

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This might read as classic self-preservation, circling the wagons at a time of crisis, and no doubt there was an element of that. But Guardiola spoke calmly on Saturday evening, visibly less agitated than he has sometimes been in the aftermath of significant victories.

The man who signed another two-year contract extension to remain with City until June 2027 this week was considered and clear-headed. Those are typically good signs.

“I’m saying that I trust more than ever with these players,” Guardiola said. “I’ve been here as a football player: you have doubts, you want to win, they are desperate to do it well. They are not ‘oh, it doesn’t matter’. Absolutely not. I see them every day in the training sessions, how they are focused today in the locker room and the warm-up and after the game, how they feel it.

“In these situations, what do you have to to? Keep going, my friends, keep going. We have done it in the past in terms of being not as bad as now in terms of results but we have done it and we face the situation and move forward.”

A potential problem with this analysis is things are not like they were in the past at Manchester City and treating them as such might compound matters.

How does Pep Guardiola deal with a crisis?

At moments of danger and doubt, a notable trait of Guardiola’s has been to double down, get back to his core principles and pursue them with increased fervour. You can’t really argue with the results.

When an ageing City squad were struggling with his demands during his first season in English football, he parked trying to find a formation to fit the collective and went back to a Barcelona-style 4-3-3. It meant David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne honed their dual-playmaker roles behind a front line fuelled by Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane’s wing play. City finished third that season and the same creative quartet were irresistible en route to a historic 100-point haul next time around.

As Liverpool stormed to glory in the pandemic-interrupted 2019/20 season, Guardiola brought in his great mentor Juanma Lillo as his new assistant. When City were struggling at the start of the following season, Guardiola and Lillo went back to something like their foundational documents: wingers getting paint on their boots, stretching the pitch and darting from outside to in, and a delightful ensemble of playmakers within. This was false-nine City, probably the most fully realised example of Guardiola’s vision that won the 2020/21 title and then pipped a formidable Liverpool at the post a year later.

After the false-nine era came the truest nine of them all: Erling Haaland, a huge asset to Guardiola but also a puzzle for him to solve. He likes both those things. It wasn’t all plain sailing but, on the other side of an explosive mid-season bust-up with Joao Cancelo, City won the treble. Guardiola found the extra midfield body he lost when Haaland joined because John Stones was the best midfielder on show in the UEFA Champions League final from centre-back.

However, all approaches have limits and Guardiola’s current squad is weaker than those he turned around previously. This is down to poor recruitment over the past two summers as well as the more recent factor of a debilitating injury list.

Against Tottenham, Guardiola selected a midfield three of Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and Rico Lewis — three players he would probably grow in a laboratory given the chance, who excel in tight spaces, cherish the ball and play with a 360-degree picture in their head.

The downside is they’re all quite small and quite slow. They share the same weaknesses and limitations. Tottenham blasted through them and passed around them time and again at the weekend. The absence of City’s Rodri-less midfield as a duelling force left a defence lacking talismanic leader Ruben Dias frequently exposed.

“The present for central defenders when [he was] fit was Rodri. Of course, it is completely different with the other ones, but you have to deal with that,” Guardiola said.

“That’s why you have to deal with a different type of game, with more control and more of these kind of things [duels]. During the season, [injuries] happened, we don’t expect to lose important players many times but it’s happened and you have to find a way. When we start to lose, I say to the people ‘I have to find a way, I have to’. It’s my duty, my responsibility to find a way to be more consistent, make our game better and win games.

“We have to find other abilities. If we don’t have this one [winning duels], you have to find another way to win it. Sometimes, what you don’t have for many reasons does not matter, we have to do it in another way. Which players do we have at our disposal? These ones are better than the other ones. Okay, let’s go and try to do it with them for the potential, the qualities that we have.”

Can Man City win without Rodri?

Lewis is a teenager who has been shunted a round various roles — a dazzling football education when things are going well but a painfully tough gig over the past month. Gundogan has looked his 34 years since returning from a season at Barcelona. Silva turned 30 at the start of the season and celebrated his birthday with a Community Shield goal against Manchester United. The Portugal international has always relished those games against big rivals but looks like he’s running on empty right now.

If Guardiola puts out the same midfield configuration at a baying Anfield next week, it would be tantamount to sending three of his favourite pupils to the gallows.

Of course, if Guardiola were purely dogmatic, he would not have enjoyed such phenomenal success. There are other ways to go about this than the comfort blanket that was blown away amid Storm Bert on Saturday.

His core principles have always been there, but Guardiola has not been shy when it comes to bolting on the physicality demanded at the sharp end of the English game. Kyle Walker looks a forlorn shell of himself right now but will be remembered as one of Guardiola’s most important signings.

Stones was able to maraud around the Ataturk Olympic Stadium that night against Inter Milan because he was one of four centre-backs on display. Perhaps those post-match glasses of wine with Tony Pulis shortly after Guardiola arrived in England were more than recreational.

Dias joined in the aftermath of a 5-2 September 2020 defeat at home to Leicester City — a humiliation unsurpassed in the Guardiola era until this weekend — and added no-nonsense defensive muscle. It’s more than a coincidence that the Portugal defender went off injured at halftime during the first game of City’s five-match losing run and is yet to return.

Then there is the much-lamented Ballon d’Or winner. Rodri plays like one of Guardiola’s much-loved La Masia geniuses with the added bonus of having the dimensions of a wardrobe. The Liverpool players they face next will tell you first-hand how much this well-heeled City side has loved a scrap. They just don’t look like that right now.

Matheus Nunes and youth-team graduate Nico O’Reilly would add badly lacking physicality to the midfield at the expense of Guardiola’s over-arching priority of control. James McAtee, restricted to a solitary minute in the Premier League this term despite City’s injury woes, could add some verve further forward.

It will be fascinating to see what team Guardiola picks for Tuesday’s Champions League showdown against Feyenoord, especially if any of the above trio feature. It is also surely time for Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish to return and add personality, presence and quality to the XI. There are places up for grabs and a season to salvage as Guardiola once again looks to strike the right balance between principles and pragmatism.