Jack: Forget United, all the pressure is on Manchester City Manchester United have much more work to do than Manchester City to get back to the peak domestically yet, as TSN's Kristian Jack writes, when the two teams meet at the Etihad on Sunday, the pressure all falls on Manuel Pellegrini's players.

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Former Manchester United star Roy Keane called them dips.

They come up regularly in his new book about teams who struggled with form.

'We were having a dip, new players had come in...'

Even someone as demanding as Keane accepted dips come to all champions but he outlines how quickly teams respond from them can be the difference when it comes to becoming champions.

We are now through 10 weeks of the season and heading into Sunday's Manchester derby (live on TSN at 8am et/5am pt), one side of Manchester are in a dip.

Not United. No, they are in a full-on rebuild. They are not good enough to call this a dip. City, the current Premier League champions, are good enough yet here they are, once again after winning a title, falling into another dip too quickly.

This was not supposed to happen to this team.

Manchester City were supposed to be a genuine superpower by now. Six years on from winning the football financial lottery, they remain a million miles away from Europe's elite clubs, stuck in an identity crisis of exactly what they need to become on the field.

Make no mistake, the brand, their academy and their executive board have improved immensely since 2008 and domestic success would suggest the playing team have done the same.

Two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and a League Cup is an impressive return over that time for a club that was stuck in the doldrums for far too long in English football, yet this is not a time for this club to stand and admire their recent history.

With the amount of money they have spent, this is a time that City should be kicking on and becoming better. A champion is often seen as a harder opponent to defeat once they have learned how to win but Manchester City are on the verge of gaining a reputation of complacent champions.

Their latest setback came in a 2-0 loss at home to Newcastle in the Capital One Cup in midweek, a competition they won last year. On the surface, some may not feel the need to read too much into a defeat in a tournament that is losing its credibility every year. However, unlike their opponents, City played a strong side to attempt to get back to winning ways. And they still lost.

It has been that kind of season so far for Manuel Pellegrini's men.

Poor performances in the Champions League against Roma and CSKA Moscow mean they are looking at the bleak prospect of being thrown into the Europa League come the New Year if they can't find a way past the Italians and into second.

In the Premier League, they have already lost at home to Stoke and away at West Ham and have seen leads against Arsenal and Hull evaporate. The manner in which they dominated games with tempo and arrogance last season has disappeared. There is no collective swagger, their combinations have no chemistry and they are scoring goals and earning points by relying on individual moments of brilliance.

Even Pellegrini, a gentleman who conducts his media appearances with class, could no longer hide his concerns heading into Sunday's match with Manchester United.

"My feeling is that we are not playing well," he admitted. "We are in a difficult moment with a lack of trust. Of course, we must be worried - but we must find a solution and we must address it.

"We will see with the players which is the way to try and recover that confidence because it's not normal to see this team playing the way we are now."

Not normal. You can say that again.

This is not a team built for dips. One day, yes, but not now.

Great teams are defined by eras and eventually they all come and go in sports, and even the best are forced to re-think and come back to the top in different ways by re-building.

This was how Jose Mourinho found Chelsea when he arrived at the start of last season. Flush with money, like Manchester City, they had made a commitment to young players by bringing over the likes of Eden Hazard and Oscar, future world class stars of the game, but ones whose inconsistencies would mean the team would need time to grow.

When they progressed, only then did they add the necessary quality around them.

City did the opposite. Before last season's title-winning campaign, they spent 100 million pounds on five players in their prime, who could make a difference immediately. Martin Demichelis, Jesus Navas, Alvaro Negredo and Fernandinho all played crucial parts in their Premier League success. Only Stevan Jovetic struggled, mainly through injuries.

This offseason, City continued that trend, bringing in players to make an immediate impact in Fernando, Frank Lampard, Bacary Sagna and Eliaquim Mangala, the most expensive defender in British football history.

No team expects to spend 32 million pounds on a project and, although the former Porto man has so far been a liability, make no mistake he does not represent a different philosophy in how City are re-building their team. He is not their Kurt Zouma.

And this is why City are between a rock and a hard place in building a team, stuck in an identity crisis, of what they want to become. This is a club who've only been good for the football equivalent of five minutes and, rightfully so, want more of it immediately, so when success doesn't follow, it is right to wonder what this team could look like in a couple of years. Financial Fair Play has stopped them spending tons of money on immediate stars and future stars so they have done all of their shopping in one area.

Yet, when you look at their players, with the exception of the more games being played by a healthy Sergio Aguero, there are too few examples of growth. This is a team full of international stars; winners who know what it took to get to the top but now, far too many of them are having a 'dip' in form.

Make no mistake, the red half of Manchester have much more work to do to get back to the peak domestically yet, as the two teams get set to meet at the Etihad, the pressure all falls on Pellegrini's players.

This Premier League race is a two-horse race but in its third month, one of those horses is still in the barn. Six points back from a formidable Chelsea side after nine games is alarming and these champions need to learn quickly about how to perform when they are not at their best so they can go on to be considered a truly great team.

Keane, who won seven leagues titles, including back-to-back championships twice, gives them the perfect lesson in his book 'The Second Half':

"When I became a player, I learnt, quickly, that winning League titles is not easy. We had to fight for our success. But we were hungry. I don't think we were ever blasé about previous successes. I never thought we could live off the past and switch off for a year or two. The top sports people aren't content with a single victory or triumph. I was surrounded by players who were like that. Don't relax just because you have won a few now. You win something and you say 'its gone'."

City's performance against Keane's former team on Sunday will show us just how much they are living in the past or the present.