UEFA Champions League: Bernardo Silva admits Manchester City ...

Bernardo Silva admitted that Manchester City are in a “dark place” after losing their third straight game across all competitions.

Despite Phil Foden scoring first away to Sporting CP, a Viktor Gyokeres hat-trick, including two penalties, and a Maximiliano Araujo strike consigned the Premier League champions to a 4-1 defeat.

Erling Haaland also missed a spot-kick at 3-1 down as City dropped points for the second time in four UEFA Champions League matches.

And Silva was frank in his assessment of City’s torrid run of form, conceding that it would be “difficult” to recover unless drastic improvement is found quickly.

“[It’s] disappointing because we’re in a bit of a dark place right now and everything looks to be going the wrong way," he told TNT Sports.

"Even when we play well, we don’t score our chances and we concede too easily.

"Definitely, we need to look inside, check what we’re not doing well and start being better very quickly, otherwise it will be difficult to come back from these losses.

"It’s football and, as I said, it’s difficult to find reasons for what is happening right now to us. I don’t remember in seven-and-a-half seasons this team losing three games in a row."

The last time City lost three games in a row across all competitions was back in April 2018, with defeats to Liverpool in the Champions League sandwiching a 3-2 loss to Manchester United, with Silva starting two of those three matches.

But although Pep Guardiola’s side are out of the EFL Cup, defeats to Bournemouth and now Sporting have not derailed the side’s push for the league title, nor qualification for the Champions League knockout rounds.

“The good thing is that even though we lost these three games, we’re still in a good position, especially in the Premier League, in the Champions League,” said Silva.

“So we haven’t lost anything. Even after losing three games, we’re still in the main competitions. We’re still fighting for everything. But we need to do better. Obviously, we need to do better.

“Our injured players need to come back because we need them and it’s just not good enough at the minute.”

Rodri, Jack Grealish, John Stones and Ruben Dias were all missing for the clash in Lisbon, but Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku got minutes off the bench.

Guardiola, meanwhile, blamed City’s issues on a lack of emotional stability, though the Catalan manager was pleased with his side’s first-half performance.

“You cannot say much when you lose 4-1. So the result is there. Congratulations to Sporting for the game,” said Guardiola.

“Now we’re struggling to score when we create and we concede when the opponents do not do much, especially, Bournemouth aside, when the other teams were much, much better.

“We made a fantastic first half I think. That first half was really, really good from my point of view. We scored a goal and we created a lot.

“Emotionally, we were not stable enough and in this competition you have to be stable. The 2-1 is 2-1. Many minutes happen but we can’t give away the two actions for the third and fourth goal.”

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