Newcastle: Manchester City's Premier League title hopes faltered once more as the champions twice blew a lead to draw 2-2 at Newcastle on Saturday. Pep Guardiola's men were frustrated for long spells after Jetro Willems quickly cancelled out Raheem Sterling's first-half opener, but seemed to have found the moment of magic they needed thanks to Kevin De Bruyne's sensational strike eight minutes from time. However, City's defensive flaws were soon exposed once more as Jonjo Shelvey swept home a well-worked free-kick six minutes later. "I saw they were sitting deep and I asked (Christian) Atsu to cut the ball back to me, it was always drifting away from the keeper," Shelvey told the BBC.

"I know I can do that, I do it in training quite regularly but it is important to do it in a match and this secured us a point." City have now dropped points in five of their 14 league games this season and could end the day 11 points behind leaders Liverpool. Guardiola, though, was phlegmatic about letting their opponents equalise twice. "We played at a good level. It was not easy because they defended deep," he told the BBC. "We scored two goals but we also let two in which is disappointing. "We do the same work we have done over the last few seasons. We tried to score more goals but it did not happen." Guardiola was without Sergio Aguero who has been ruled out for a couple of weeks by a thigh muscle injury and City missed his predatory instincts as they failed to make nearly 80 percent possession count.