Vlahovic and McKennie pile on the pain for Guardiola's struggling City

Missing in action during the past six weeks: Manchester City's pizzazz. It was absent here again, in the latest moping performance that has become the odd, yet recognisable face of Pep Guardiola's formerly supreme team.

- Jamie Jackson

There is now a surreal element about City's plunge. Sides go on losing runs - sure they do - but for this champion group to lose once more and extend their disturbing run to a meagre single victory in 10 games is baffling.

It is befuddling Guardiola, who acknowledged his men should have won more times than they have since first going down at Tottenham in the Carabao Cup on 30 October. The manager's statement came before this latest reverse, perhaps aired as a gee-up.

It did not work and instead Juventus sealed a precious win thanks to Dusan Vlahovic's 53rd-minute header and a second goal that came on the break when Timothy Weah flipped the ball in from the right and Weston McKennie thundered a volley home.

Each were substitutes thrown on by Thiago Motta. His opposite number, 75 minutes in, had deployed none: one more sign of the torpor engulfing Guardiola and his charges.

At kick-off, City were 20th, and Juve 22nd, each with eight points, four away from the last automatic qualification berth. It cast this as a clash of two continental giants who needed victory, and the boost it would provide on their return to domestic duties. In the past weeks, Guardiola has emanated isolation, a loneliness that comes from serial losses. For the first time in nine years piloting City, he has pointed to injuries in mitigation, though here he named a strong XI.