Is Pep Guardiola tinkering too much with Man City? Or is it something else?

Saturday's 3-1 defeat to Chelsea left Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola in a spot of bother. He had formatted a team specifically for the task of coping with Chelsea's 3-4-3 system, and the subsequent loss prompted inevitable criticism. Guardiola, they say, can be too much of a tinkerer.

In truth, the weekend defeat was tough to analyse. On paper, it was indeed a crushing defeat against the new Premier League title favourites, but it wasn't as comprehensive as the scoreline suggests. City dominated the first half, went 1-0 ahead and would probably have wrapped up the game comfortably, had Kevin De Bruyne not contrived to miss an open goal early in the second half. The subsequent collapse, though, was concerning.

It's also worth reiterating that Guardiola has lost only two Premier League matches so far. Both defeats, 2-0 away at Tottenham and Saturday's loss to Chelsea, eventually seemed resounding, but City performed well in both matches, created plenty of chances and would have arguably snatched a draw on another day. Pushing forward late on left them exposed to counterattacks, and in the final 10 minutes, they appeared rather ragged in both matches.

Results such as these happen, however, and every club is capable of slipping up against dangerous opponents. The real problem so far has been something different: City have unnecessarily dropped points in three home matches.

Against Everton, Southampton and, most surprisingly, Middlesbrough, Manchester City have drawn 1-1. These are the type of matches City need to win convincingly, wrapping up victory with a minimum of fuss. It's these matches too in which Guardiola's tinkering might have been most harmful.

The midweek Champions League draw with Celtic was yet another 1-1 draw. In isolation, it didn't matter; the game was meaningless. But it was two more dropped points and another confusing system from Guardiola, with youngster Tosin Adarabioyo flanked by full-backs Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna in a three-man central defence and Pablo Zabaleta surprisingly deployed in midfield.

Guardiola has become such a tinkerer relatively recently in his career. He experimented increasingly toward the end of his time with Barcelona, and while always trying surprise systems with Bayern, he was most unpredictable during his final campaign in Bavaria. What's crucial, though, is that both teams always had a defined Plan A, a reliable, easily understood system to fall back upon. In part, that was because of what came before he arrived.

As Guardiola acknowledged throughout his period with Barcelona, he didn't invent their footballing philosophy, which essentially dated back many years to Rinus Michels' reign as manager in the mid-1970s. There was unquestionably a Guardiola style of play, one based upon ball possession more than ever before, but Barcelona's DNA was about passing football, specifically about midfielders who were brilliant in possession. Sergio Busquets, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta were raised in the Barcelona school, and helpfully, all three highlighted Guardiola as one of their major inspirations.