Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards have both insisted that Manchester City need to sign another centre-back to beat Liverpool to the Premier League title this season.
Pep Guardiola's side have brought in Nathan Ake from Bournemouth but are still actively pursuing another defender.
Kalidou Koulibaly remains the club's top transfer target but negotiations with Napoli continue to drag on and Spanish media has linked City with Jules Kounde from Sevilla.
Ahead of their opening Premier League match of the season against Wolves, Carragher and Richards were both unified in their belief that City must bolster their defence in a bid to boast a more settled backline, if they're to win the title.
“I see them just slightly short of Liverpool and I think that can be addressed in the transfer market before the window closes," Carragher said.
"I don’t think they’re too far away. City getting back to the team we saw a couple of years ago, they’re still hitting those numbers going forward, so we know there are defensive problems - I expect a centre-back to come in.
"What I’m interested in this season is it’s probably the first time in Guardiola’s managerial career, really, that he’s almost managing change. I mentioned that with Frank Lampard yesterday, but going back two years ago where they won the league title and they got 100 points, there’s probably gonna be four or five different players that we see tonight and throughout this season as well.
"It will be interesting to see how Pep deals with that and maybe one or two more coming in because I expect City to do that.”
Richards said: “There’s no real consistency. Liverpool have Trent, Robertson, Virgil van Dijk and Gomez - if he’s fit. With Manchester City, I don’t even think Pep knows his best back four.
"It’s difficult because Mendy’s had injuries, Zinchenko is actually a midfielder playing at left-back, Walker is probably the only certainty in that side even though he swaps with Cancelo.
"It’s difficult. For me, it says he’s not trusting his team. When I was playing under Mancini, we’d always rotate the full-backs. It’s just that centre-back pairing, obviously the manager has lost faith in a lot of his players.
"Every single transfer window, they’re linked with a defender, or two, or three. They’ve brought in Ake. Is he going to be the one to lead the line? I’m not too sure. We’re yet to see.”
