Man City’s senior stars hauled squad in for crisis talks after poor run of results saw them drop to fourth

MANCHESTER CITY’S senior stars held emergency crisis talks during a poor run of form that saw Pep Guardiola’s men plunging to fourth place.

That is according to City star Nathan Ake, who revealed captains Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne, Ruben Dias, Rodri and Bernardo Silva called for a summit meeting to steady the ship.

Manchester City ace Nathan Ake revealed there were crisis talks after a poor runGetty

Man City captains wanted to ensure no one played the “victim card” or made “excuses”Getty

This came after three consecutive Premier League draws against Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham as well as a 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa.

Ake told The Telegraph: “We had a big get together organised by the captains and we had a good talk with each other.

“Not to hammer each other but to be honest that everyone has to look at themselves to see what we can do better because this is not what we want.

“We want to win games and get the season going again and we had to do it now while there were still so many games to go.

“The time was still there to do it because we would rather have had the conversation then than in five weeks when we could have been even more points behind.”

Ake added that the meeting took place in good faith with the floor open for all players to express any concerns they had.

The versatile defender added that the point of the meeting was to ensure no one played the “victim card” or made “excuses”.

Ake added: “We talked a couple of times with the players together to get to grips with it. We know we weren’t playing too badly.

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“But we weren’t getting the points and all of us expect from each other that we get points, we defend better and look at yourself for why we are conceding so many goals.

“They weren’t necessarily great goals [from the opponents] – many were deflections or those kind of things – but it still happened so [we asked] why did it happen this year and not last year?

“We talked with each other about it to try to understand and make sure everyone was on the same page – that we don’t just play the victim card of deflections or a difficult moment.

“We have to do better as individual players and defenders but everyone was allowed to say whatever they wanted and we picked it up. We set the standards really high for ourselves.

“Obviously the manager is on top of it but we want to achieve good things as well and always make sure that, no matter what, we want to keep the standards high and not let excuses or injuries creep in for performances.

“So it’s a good thing that we still have this character to keep going.”

And it seems that meeting had the same effect as similar crisis talks back in 2021 initiated by then captain Fernandinho, which led to a 21-match winning streak and third Premier League title under Guardiola.

City are now third in the Premier League table and a victory at Newcastle on Saturday would see them climbing to second place with only two points adrift of leaders Liverpool.