Paul Dickov is confident that City will hit the ground running following the World Cup break.

Pep Guardiola’s men fell to our first home defeat of the season against Brentford on Saturday, with an Ivan Toney brace handing the visitors a 2-1 victory.

Reflecting on the result and performance on Matchday Live, Dickov gave credit to visiting manager Thomas Frank and how he set his side up at the Etihad.

But the former City forward expects another fine run of form to begin when the Premier League gets back under way.

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He said: “Sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up and give credit [to the opponent], but every time this team gets a setback they come back and go and win five, six, seven or eight in a row.

“They’ve got a little break now, but I have no doubt that’ll happen.

“We’re so lucky to be able to sit here and watch the football these guys play. We’re used to them being at their very best every time.

“Sometimes if you get beat it’s easy to look at the other team and be critical but I think you’ve got to give a huge amount of credit to Brentford today.

“I thought they were outstanding, Ivan Toney was the best player on the pitch and sometimes you’ve got to be a bit humble about it.”

Dickov was joined by former City star Shay Given in the Matchday Live studio.

And while the goalkeeper was also quick to heap praise on Brentford, he suggested that the congested fixture schedule, which has seen Pep Guardiola’s men in action twelve times in just six weeks.

“If you look at it in the cold light of day, how Brentford set up, the gameplan literally worked to a t,” Given reflected.

“The possession stats, passes completed, City will be way ahead, but when they broke, they did it with numbers and had so much pace.

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“It was very difficult to defend against.

“You have to give credit to Thomas Frank and his team how they set up.

“Maybe from a City point of view it was just one too many, we’ve played so many games every three days over the past few weeks.

“Champions League, Premier League, Carabao Cup, it’s been crammed in and it just looked like maybe a yard of spark wasn’t there today.”