Pep Guardiola defended the performances of his centre back pairing after Manchester City slipped to a damaging home defeat by Wolves.
The Blues were hit by two counter-attacking sucker punches in the second half, leading to Adama Traore goals.
And they were repeatedly undone down the middle in the first half, with veteran Nicolas Otamendi and stand-in Fernandinho forced into some last-ditch defending.
Otamendi in particular suffered, and coming after his slack role in the 3-2 defeat at Norwich, fingers are being pointed at a defender who almost left the club in the summer.
He stayed because the departure of Vincent Kompany and failure to buy Harry Maguire as a replacement meant he would get more opportunities.
And with Aymeric Laporte and John Stones both out injured, Otamendi has got his chance.
He had a poor game against Wolves, but Guardiola did his usual trick of deflecting the criticism.
Asked if this had been a game too far for the two centre backs after four wins from four, he said: “No. They were quite good. They suffered because we lost possession in front of them. No central defenders can sustain this kind of balls we lose in the first moments. They were good.”
It was reminiscent of his staunch defence of Claudio Bravo on his City debut in the Manchester derby.
Guardiola said the problems City had today came further up the field.
“We won the last game v Dinamo Zagreb where we were so good,” he said.
“Against Bournemouth we conceded a few (chances). Today we conceded but it was the way we did it.
“When you have the ball and you pass back. The first goal, we lost the ball inside. We have to improve but that happens because maybe we weren’t solid in our build-up. It is not just about the defensive side.”
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