The Premier League defending champions, Manchester City were on Saturday night shocked to a 3-2 defeat by newly promoted Norwich City at Carrow Road despite the Canaries coping with a massive injury crisis.
The first league loss of tourists since January was self-inflicted as defenders made frequent mistakes, but Norwich, whose objectives came from Kenny McLean, Todd Cantwell and Teemu Pukki, completely deserved their second home victory since securing promotion.
Rodri drilled home with two minutes to go to give City hope of a point but defeat on Saturday leaves them five points behind Liverpool in the table, with the Reds holding a 100 per cent record after five Premier League games.
Norwich were without 11 players due to injury and had to name two goalkeepers on the bench, but Daniel Farke’s men took a shock lead in the 18th minute.
City’s weakness from near-post corners is well known and when Emiliano Buendia floated Norwich’s first set-piece into that area, McLean ran into space to power home a superb header.
It got worse for the champions 10 minutes later. Rodri lost a 50-50 on halfway and City were immediately exposed with Pukki able to easily advance and square for Cantwell to score.
Raheem Sterling’s header hit the post as City aimed to respond and Sergio Aguero halved the deficit before the break by nodding home a perfectly placed left-wing Bernardo Silva centre.
After the restart, Nicolas Otamendi provided Norwich with a donation of a third, Buendia robbing the goalkeeper and feeding Pukki for an simple finish – his eighth objective of the season for club and nation.
Pep Guardiola sent on Kevin De Bruyne, Gabriel Jesus and Riyad Mahrez from the bench but the cavalry could not rescue the champions, although Rodri’s 20-yard drive flew past Tim Krul to leave Norwich to see out a nervy finale.
The news Aymeric Laporte could miss six months was a huge blow to a squad still missing the steady leadership of Vincent Kompany, who was not replaced when his contract expired.
John Stones has been out of sorts for some time and Otamendi also feels like a player who always has a mistake in him, with Guardiola possessing no specialist cover for either centre-back.
Guardiola told reporters before this game that City would not buy a defender in January but he has to reconsider after this shambolic defensive performance, although take nothing away from Norwich. They were huge outsiders and produced one of the league’s biggest ever shocks.
For Norwich or his nation, Finland forward Pukki has performed 10 matches since May 5, failing to find the net in just one of those appearances. At the age of 29, his career took the long way to the Premier League but Pukki looks at home.
Goals are often the biggest problem for promoted sides but in Pukki, the Premier League’s player of the month for August, they have a striker they can rely on, while he showed an unselfish streak to set up Cantwell for the Canaries’ second.
One mistake in a game can be forgiven but Otamendi made two awful errors in incredibly quick succession. Having played a poor pass to the similarly sloppy Stones that Norwich failed to capitalise on, he switched off immediately to allow Norwich to net the goal that effectively killed the game.
Although Argentina’s defender began 14 league matches last term, Stones and Otamendi do not look like a collaboration that will assist City regain the title of the Premier League
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