LISBON: Ruben Amorim saved one of his greatest Sporting victories for his last home game to condemn Manchester City to a third successive defeat for the first time since April 2018.

The 4-1 margin was City’s heaviest defeat since September 2020 and only the second time in his trophy-ladened spell at City that Pep Guardiola has been beaten in three consecutive games in a single season.

Star striker Erling Haaland even blasted a second-half penalty against the crossbar.

Sporting’s own Scandanavian superstar Viktor Gyokeres – formerly of Coventry City – did much of the damage with a superb hat-trick.

The Swede drove home a 38th-minute leveller to Phil Foden’s early opener and then kept his cool after the break to beat Ederson twice from the spot.

The first of those penalties came in a disastrous start to the second half for City as they went behind seconds after the restart as Maximiliano Araujo raced onto a through ball and fired into the corner.

Amorim’s reign has one more match to go, at Braga on Sunday.

If the build-up to this game was all about Amorim and his impending move, much of the aftermath will be centred around Guardiola and his team.

The injury issues City are wrestling with meant Jahmai Simpson-Pusey was handed his first senior start in central defence, less than a week after his first-team debut. Simpson-Pusey only turned 19 the day before the game and he was given a baptism of fire by Gyokeres, who used all his experience to full effect.

Guardiola must have had his heart in his mouth when Manuel Akanji went down in the second half with what appeared to be a head injury. But the Swiss defender recovered and was able to complete the game.

The City boss has said this season will be ‘a struggle’. That prediction is already coming true.

To help him out, he needs his senior players to have an impact. Foden did so when he drove home his fourth goal of the season to set City on course for what seemed certain to be an easy win.

But early chances to double the advantage came and went and City were swept away by two goals in four minutes at the start of the second half.

Normally, a response would be expected. Had Haaland converted his penalty, it might have come. The Norwegian has now failed to score in four of his last six games.

It is not just City as a whole who are struggling, individual players are too.

Gyokeres, 26, has plenty of experience in the English leagues following spells with Brighton, Swansea and Coventry. However, it is with Sporting that the Swede has really shot to prominence.

He now has an impressive 57 goals for the club in all competitions and 12 in his last six games following four strikes against Estrela last Friday.

Up until his equaliser, it wasn’t as though he was having a particularly productive evening.

Quite aside from wasting an early chance to level when he almost seemed to have too much time and not enough in the same moment as he bore down on the City goal, yet snatched at the opportunity and sent his chip straight to Ederson, Gyokeres was also wasteful in possession.

One run took him straight into a crowd of opponents inside the City box when he had team-mates in excellent positions, another routine pass across the area went straight to a blue shirt.

At that point, it was easy to wonder what the fuss was all about. Gyokeres soon sorted that out. It is probably a good job for Sporting that Amorim has pledged not to take any of their players in the January transfer window.

#######