Lost City still need recovery

London - Joint leaders of the Premier League on New Year's Day, the wheels started to come off Manchester City's season during their 2-0 defeat by Arsenal in the middle of January -- and they have never been the same since.

City had been challenging Chelsea at the top of the table and at the start of 2015, the two clubs had been separated only by alphabetical order.

Although there had been some earlier indications that Manuel Pellegrini's well-oiled machine was not running quite as smoothly as it could, City looked set to maintain their push for a second successive title.