Pep Guardiola has denied that a key factor in Manchester City’s run of five straight defeats is that nine of his players are 30 or older, with the coach pointing out that the same players were Premier League champions last season.

The 4-0 defeat to Tottenham on Saturday was the second consecutive defeat against Ange Postecoglou’s team, the others coming against Brighton, Sporting and Bournemouth. This is City’s worst performance under Guardiola and the worst of his 17-year coaching career.

Mateo Kovacic, Bernardo Silva, John Stones, Ederson, Stefan Ortega, Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gündogan, Kyle Walker and Scott Carson are all 30 or older. Apart from Gündogan, everyone was at City when they won the title for a record fourth time in a row in May.

“It depends on the performance,” Guardiola said when asked ahead of City’s Champions League hosts Feyenoord on Tuesday whether the increasing years were the main reason for his team’s worrying decline in form. “There are players aged 30 and over who are performing incredibly well. There are players at 23 who are not performing well. I don’t see the age. All teams have players of a certain age.

“In my view, the current analysis shows that we are not getting results, not because we have players (older than 30) but because they were the same age a few weeks ago and we won the Premier League and reached the FA Cup final and were eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Champions League against Real Madrid.

“I want to defend what we did because I know these guys and I never blame one player. There are many factors that make a difference. If I could pinpoint the reason why, I would tackle it (solve it) immediately, but it’s not that simple.”

Guardiola cannot be disturbed. “I learn from situations like this, be calm. Sometimes I scream, but the next morning over coffee I say, ‘Why am I screaming? Stay calm.'”

De Bruyne was substituted after 74 minutes against Spurs as the 33-year-old playmaker continued his comeback from an abdominal problem. His contract expires next summer and he explained that Guardiola’s signing of a two-year deal last week could make the difference in deciding his long-term future.

“That could be it. It might help. Because I know what the future holds (under Guardiola),” said De Bruyne. “And I don’t need to talk to Pep about what happens in the future. Of course, if it’s a new coach, you have to talk to these people because you don’t know what they want from you.

“Maybe if I wanted to talk to Pep about my future I would have a conversation because I don’t know what he thinks. And maybe he’ll change his mind and say, ‘Kevin, thanks.’ Time to go.’ But there is more understanding of what is happening. I know how he works, how he works with the team, how he works with the players. So this is nothing new for me.”

“Kevin will be honest,” the manager said about his midfielder’s future. “He wants to do his best here. I don’t think he’ll be here if he thinks he can’t be the Kevin that can bring the team forward and help them like he has for the last decade.”

De Bruyne said his injury layoff from mid-September to early November was the toughest of his career. “That was the most frustrating thing because when I had a hamstring injury last year I knew I would be out for five or six months,” said the Belgian.

“That’s fine. But now it’s time, I don’t know. When it happened after Inter, I was basically testing myself to be able to play at the weekend, but that wasn’t possible. So I didn’t know “How long it would take me to get better, and in the end it took a long time.”