The departure of some of the best players means they don't have a similar replacement yet. Gudongan, making the midfield line has no attack creator other than De Bruyne. If Bruyne is injured then Man City are like losing a creative person. I think against Sevilla they lost 2-0, it was difficult for them to win. Unfortunately, several goal-ready chances failed.
Overall Man City played well in the match, but there were no creators to build attacks, making it difficult for Haaland to score goals. If we watched the match, we can see how Man City dominated in that match, Man City successfully made seven shots on target and dominated the midfield. The loss of De Bruyne left the front line unable to do much and there were no players capable of flowing measurable passes to the forwards.
Sevilla's first goal came from Youssef En-Nesyri's header due to an anticipatory mistake made by a defender and fortunately Man City managed to equalize through Palmer, so the match had to continue through Penalties and Man City managed to come out as champions.
Performance is not like we have in last season but with few changes and as players are adjusting all will be OK because still they are one of the best in the business as we can watch all statics they were dominating and have good advantage, but their midfield was not performing as expectations may be due to few players departure and Haaland was also not effective he wants to be. De Bruyne is also a key player, his absence is also having serious impact on their performance.
Now on this Sunday we are heading for the another test which will give clear review how things will be in this season because Newcastle Untied also having impressive start even most chances at home Manchester city will win this match, but this will be really entertaining match for the both teams which will give some direction how things will be in this all season.