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The sight of Romelu Lukaku powering past Gael Clichy and slapping a shot past Claudio Bravo was a huge wake-up call to Pep Guardiola.

And when Manchester City go to Goodison Park for the return fixture, the ever-dangerous Lukaku will be a serious test of how much th Blues boss has learned in the last three months.

The City manager watched in disbelief as his decision to play three at the back against the Toffees, in October, blew up in his face.

The Blues utterly dominated the game, which fulfilled that part of the plan – they had an astonishing 73 per cent possession, completely bossed the midfield and had 19 shots to the visitors' three.

They also saw Everton keeper Maarten Stekelenburg stop two penalties and make world-class saves from Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero shots.

But when Lukaku received the ball, inside his own half, as another fierce City assault had been repelled, the City defence was an utter shambles.

Of the three defenders he deployed, only Gael Clichy could claim initial innocence in some criminal defending.

He was on the halfway line, in the centre circle as Lukaku received the ball in space, courtesy of John Stones' rash lunge at Yannick Bolasie which put him out of the game.

Nicolas Otamendi was already out of it – he was inexplicably in an attacking midfield position, vertically ahead of Stones.

With defensive midfielder Fernandinho failing to spot the danger early enough, Clichy was suddenly aware he was the only defender between Lukaku and keeper Claudio Bravo, and tried to shepherd the striker away from goal.

It was quickly evident that Clichy is no centre back as Lukaku was too quick and strong, storming past the Frenchman and firing past Bravo to give the Toffees a lead later cancelled out by Nolito's rescue act.

It was a common theme for City in Guardiola's traumatic first autumn in Manchester.

He obviously worked at ironing out the creases but it flopped again in another 1-1 home draw with Southampton as Stones made another alarming error.

And when Diego Costa made full use of the extra space to engineer Chelsea's 3-1 win at the Etihad Stadium, Guardiola discarded the whole idea.

He will use it again, no doubt. But it was obvious that sometimes you need the players who fit your ideas, rather than forcing the ideas to fit the players.

After the draw at Celtic and defeat at Spurs, morale had been seriously dented going into that Everton game, and a new system was perhaps a bad idea when the defenders' minds were already churning with doubt and uncertainty.

Stones and Kolarov had both looked excellent at the start of the season, both showered with compliments by the new manager.

Guardiola urged Otamendi to cut out the rash challenges from his game, with some degree of success.

But the failed summer bids for Aymeric Laporte and Leonardo Bonucci meant the Blues still looked short at centre back.

It was not just a system failure. Guardiola quickly reverted to four at the back, but even that unravelled at the seams in that dreadful 4-2 thrashing at Leicester.

That was not just a failure of the back four, as the whole team was dreadful that day, but Stones, Kolarov and stand-in defensive midfielder Fernando were especially bad.

Leicester's direct style and pace ripped gaping holes in a square, error-prone, slow defence.

Of course, Guardiola's only real recourse to solving the problem is to get Vincent Kompany fit again and dip into the transfer market – likely to be in the summer.

But since Leicester, only Arsenal and Liverpool have breached the defence, and City have won five out of six, keeping four clean sheets.

Otamendi was dropped after his monstering by Chelsea's Diego Costa, but has responded well since, and that has been a factor in the improved defending, along with better displays from Kolarov and Stones.

And Guardiola has demanded more from the rest of the team, emphasising that defending is an 11-man job, not down to the back three or four.

The test of how far they have progressed will come in the next two fixtures, with Lukaku awaiting on Sunday and then the visit of Tottenham to the Etihad six days later.