Steven Bergwijn scores spectacular volley as Tottenham stun Manchester City
Tottenham 2-0 Man City: A game of wasted opportunities for Pep Guardiola’s side – including Ilkay Gundogan’s missed penalty – turned on its head after Oleksandr Zinchenko’s red card
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Your support makes all the difference.Some might call it efficiency, some might call it a Jose Mourinho masterclass. The man himself will call it the only thing that actually matters: victory. And maybe a bit of vindication.
For Manchester City, you might call it part of an ongoing meltdown that is costing them their title in record time, Or perhaps, just one of those days.
If this 2-0 Tottenham Hotspur win over Manchester City did feel a long way from the best days of the Pep Guardiola-Mourinho rivalry, it did recall one of the Portuguese’s key principles from that time, and something he used to say to the Real Madrid players a lot. He might repeat it with a little more pride in the Spurs dressing room after this: “Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.”
City of course made many more mistakes, having naturally had so much more of the ball. They were particularly error-strewn with Ilkay Gundogan’s missed penalty, Oleksandr Zinchenko’s foul for the red card and so many missed chances.
There, crucially, Spurs didn’t make a mistake once. The stats after the clinching second goal recorded them having a mere two shots. They scored from both.
The first was a peach of a finish and a peach of a moment. Promising new signing Steven Bergwijn celebrated his debut with a divine volley on the turn. That was the turning of the game.
The second - from Son Heung-Min - was a little cruder, given it came from a deflection, but still told the story of the game. Spurs’ minimalist directness beat City’s overwrought elaboration.
On another day, to be fair, the defending champions - something they won’t be able to say for much longer - could have been 3-0 up after an hour. That is why the merits of the tactics shouldn’t be overstated. It was, really, one of those days. Spurs did get lucky. But you still have to actually use that luck, and go and do it.
That’s the only way to describe their performance. They went and did it. It was so basic but, against this anxiety-ridden City, effective.
Spurs’ main attacking play seemed to be getting the fast players - usually Son Heung-Min - to run at goal in a straight line. It initially seemed so easy to read, but eventually broke Spurs, mostly through that Zinchenko red card. His foul on Harry Winks was certainly easy to read. Zinchenko’s willingness to get involved in the confrontation after the penalty came back to cost him.
In contrast to such straight lines, City were putting together all matter of patterns. But maybe too many. This was one of those matches where it seemed they over-elaborated, that in itself then only deepening the anxiety and second-guessing about actually scoring. How else to explain so many missed chances?
Well, one fair explanation for a lot of those chances was that too many - the penalty, and two efforts right in front of goal - fell to Gundogan. It was not his day either.
The penalty was so tame, but perhaps worse was his third effort. Coming just moments after he’d skied that admittedly awkward opportunity from the open goal, the chance saw the ball pulled back to him, only for Gundogan to completely miss it.
This was the story of City’s display. It was one of those games where they had so much of the ball, but then so little poise with it once they got within 15 feet of Lloris’s goal.
Perhaps the elongated penalty incident scrambled their mindset, fostering a doubt. There should really be no doubt about the actual decision itself. Serge Aurier did indeed make contact with Sergio Aguero.
After that, though, everything seemed to suddenly combine so City were gradually pulled apart. The penalty ended up proving a set-back as Gundogan missed. The confrontation from Sterling’s controversial fall allowed Spurs to get into their heads. It saw Zinchenko pick up the yellow card that eventually resulted in his red.
After that, and Bergwijn’s brilliant finish, the space was there for Son to cut City open.
Guardiola’s side had had most of the ball and pretty much all the chances - but also made all of the mistakes.
The Catalan will now look to whether there have been errors in recruitment, and there will surely be those around him wondering whether it might be a mistake to stay on. That talk is only growing, in tandem with City’s loosening grip on the trophy.
It is why this might just have been one of those days, but similarly can't be written off that. It is part of bigger problems that have come to cost City time and again this season. It is starting to create doubt about the future.
Mourinho took a step forward, meanwhile, by reaching back to his past. It gave him a precious win. There's no mistaking that.
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