Manchester City 0-4 Tottenham (Maddison 13’, 20’, Porro 52’, Johnson 90+3′)
It began with searchlights scanning the crowd, who responded by turning on the lights on their phones. You wondered if Bob Dylan was going to wander on and sing “Blowing in the Wind”.
Instead, Rodri came on to parade his Ballon d’Or. Behind him, on the pitch, there was a giant board where his name was picked out in lightbulbs as if the Manchester City midfielder were Elvis and this was the 1968 Comeback Special. Blackpool may have done something similar for Stanley Matthews when he won the award.
Then the crowd began chanting Pep Guardiola‘s name. He had responded to a run of four defeats by announcing he had signed a new two-year contract and reminding a media he always suspects of wanting the whole City project to implode that he had won six Premier League titles.
It was a demonstration of who Manchester City are. The champions of England with the best manager and best player in the world.
They then suffered their fifth successive defeat and by a distance the most damaging. By the time Brennan Johnson clipped home the fourth from another breakaway which saw Timo Werner leave Kyle Walker for dead, it had become a rout.
None of the previous losses looked though it might be fatal. One was in the Champions League group stage and another was in the League Cup, a competition Guardiola wanted rid of anyway.
The consequences of this defeat might be season-defining. Liverpool could host City next Sunday eight points clear.
Should City give the ball away as casually as they did against Tottenham and defend as naively, the defence of their title may be over on the first day of December.
It is worth pointing out that Manchester City still attacked like a Guardiola team. Had Guglielmo Vicario not been in exceptional form in the Spurs goal, had Phil Foden, Savinho and Erling Haaland, in particular, been slightly more accurate with their shooting, this might have been an epic contest.
Tottenham, who came here as the only club to have lost to Ipswich and Crystal Palace, have now beaten both Manchester clubs on their own turf and removed City from the League Cup.
Spurs have taken more points from Guardiola at the Etihad than any other club. They have never seemed afraid of Manchester City – the last eight games between these two sides here have produced 36 goals. Now was not the time to start.
Dejan Kulusevski gave them penetration from the flanks that James Maddison exploited beautifully. His first goal was taken on the volley, the second almost dug out from under his boots as he advanced on goal. Both were scored with a coolness City, who had double the number of shots, mostly lacked.
Tottenham, as their fans know, are perfectly capable of tossing aside a two-goal lead but the third, which saw Dominic Solanke pulling back the ball for Pedro Porro to thunder into the top of Ederson’s net, was the killer.
When the story of the season comes to be written, it will probably conclude that the loss of Rodri, the man who dominated the prelude to this contest, was crucial and the moment his anterior cruciate snapped against Arsenal was the moment of reckoning.
There are comparisons with Roy Keane’s absence with a similar injury at a similar time – their cruciates both went in September – that climaxed with Manchester United losing the title to Arsenal in 1998.
The difference is that City’s collapse came almost immediately after Rodri’s injury whereas United fell apart between February and April, months in which Alex Ferguson’s sides generally excelled.
The blip is becoming a landslide and if Guardiola cannot halt it against Liverpool, they will be buried beneath it. Perhaps, before that match they ought to play a film in the dressing room of Manchester City losing to Mansfield in the 1998 Auto Windscreens Shield.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/hRcekVY
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