One game, one defeat and Manchester City's bumbling billionaires are staggering towards a crisis.

Gary Neville has mournfully highlighted City's three consecutive defeats as if administering the last rites to a dying soldier.

Those losses, incidentally, were in the Champions League final, the Community Shield and the first game of the English Premier League season, where a City side missing John Stones, Kyle Walker, Kevin de Bruyne and Phil Foden toiled against Tottenham Hotspur.

Never let it be said that the hysterical EPL lacks perspective.

But there is definitely something in the air with regards to City's initial fumbling. A lack of sympathy, certainly, but that's to be expected. Since when did anyone care about the misfortune of rival clubs?

It's the lack of empathy that's interesting. No other club has been in City's current position before, owned and run by a petro-state with limitless funds and expected to win every available trophy to stave off anti-climax.

Pep Guardiola won the title by 12 points last season, but didn't take home the coveted Champions League, so he's obviously a failure.

Guardiola intends to buy the most accomplished striker in British football, so he's clearly the spoiled brat that gets every gift at Christmas.

In reality, the City manager is seeking to replace a club legend, Sergio Aguero, and hasn't bought a conventional centre-forward in more than four years. When it comes to strikers, he's hardly the Kardashians let loose with credit cards.