Enzo Maresca aims to kick-start Manchester City season after run of defeats

Enzo Maresca enters his second international break as manager of Manchester City with as many questions as answers hovering over his expensively assembled squad.

Chief among those enquiries is whether his new-look team is a genuine Premier League title contender or merely a work in progress destined to find itself in a scrap with the pack that is currently chasing champions Arsenal.

The answer may become clearer within eight days of the November 21 restart when City are scheduled to travel to the Emirates Stadium for a mouth-watering showdown.

Having already won at Liverpool and Manchester United without conceding a goal, City ought to be looking forward to the trip – which comes in the same week as home games against Fulham and Napoli – but three successive league defeats have raised queries about the state of play with Maresca's side.

It is all a far cry from the opening months of the season when Maresca steered his side to seven successive Premier League wins which surpassed the previous record setting efforts of Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – who each won their first six with City, Chelsea and Manchester United, respectively.

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During those first seven Premier League games in charge, Maresca’s City scored 19 goals and conceded just six. Since then they’ve lost at Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest and at home to Brighton scoring just twice over the three matches.

They have struggled to contain the opposition press and to convert chances and have slipped from six points clear at the top of the league to third place behind Arsenal and Brighton.

Those most recent results have induced some soul searching from 46-year-old Italian Maresca, who has won much admiration and praise for the way he has conducted himself in the face of constant questions about City’s on-going off the field issues, which saw a Premier League commission find them in breach of 114 of 115 rules infractions. City maintains its innocence and is currently appealing the verdict.

“I'm always concerned, even when we win games,” Maresca said after losing to Forest which saw City old boy Liam Delap scored twice. “We need to have balance. We won seven in a row. Now we have lost three in a row, so we need balance on that.

“During the international break, we will try to understand what we can do better, and try to start again after.

“In the same way we have done the first one, we're going to use this international break to try to clarify what we can do better. We know we do some things better, and also we know we need to improve things. So we are going to use that and try to understand how we can avoid the kind of game we had in Nottingham.”

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City have lost three consecutive Premier League games for the first time since a run of defeats in the autumn of 2004. The last time a team in the top flight won its first seven games and then lost its next three was in 1904-05 (Sheffield Wednesday)!

Despite all that, Maresca’s start to the season is better than all but Guardiola’s in the Abu Dhabi ownership era and even that is a close run thing.

In all, there have been five managers to serve under chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak since he took the helm in 2008.

Former Manchester United and Barcelona striker Mark Hughes was the man Abu Dhabi inherited and he won just two of those first ten games.

The Welshman was succeeded by Italian Roberto Mancini who won six and drew two of his opening ten Premier League outings garnering 20 points – one fewer than Maresca.

Next up was Chilean Manuel Pellegrini who also won six of his opening ten matches but lost three on the way to a 19 point haul – two fewer than Maresca.

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Finally, Guardiola, who won all his first six games as manager then went three without a win before a 4-0 away victory at West Bromwich Albion took his tally to 23 points from ten games – just two more than Maresca.

The last three of Maresca’s predecessors were crowned Premier League winners – in Guardiola’s case six times.

Maresca’s 70 per cent winning start in the Premier League should also be weighed alongside positive progress in the Uefa Champions League, where City are currently in the top eight sides that would qualify straight to the knockout phase. They’ve won three out of four games and lost only to reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain.

Domestically they are through to the quarter finals of the League Cup, a competition they have won nine times, including last season when they defeated Arsenal 2-0 at Wembley Stadium. A home tie against League One Bradford City awaits.