Johnny On The Spot: #GAME MANAGED. Manchester City’s strong title defence continues, albeit rendered under the radar by the football media’s relentless obsessing over champions elect Liverpool and the Maureen & the Stretfords soap opera… 6 consecutive Premier League clean sheets have now been recorded alongside 13 wins from our last 14 games in London.
Fears that the Wembley surface would be a mess following a month of NFL fixtures and a boxing event were horribly realised. It was a right pudding meaning the teams had to work harder and put in seriously hard yards. Defensive discipline and focus became more important than attacking calibre as the game wore on. City owned the first half but would have been immensely grateful to have avoided any real scares amid all the wayward distribution, stumbles and misplaced passes.
The bumpy pitch condition worsened into the second half, the bounce becoming more and more difficult to read. Two ordinarily scintillating sides had become firmly stranded in a comedy of errors lottery, quite frankly a disgrace of a situation at this level. However, the borderline surface could not account for the persistence of City profligacy despite consistent intent that once again incensed Pep Guardiola as his side were forced to walk an unnecessary tightrope. With 20 minutes remaining the City boss took the game by the scruff of the neck and hooked Kun Agüero for Kevin De Bruyne in a game management based decision to flood the midfield and send Spanish Dave forward. Pep had opted to sit tight and counter.
Faced with all Spurs assembled big guns in the closing stages, the contest became increasingly attritional for the Blues but they weathered what huff and puff Tottenham could muster with grit and determination. Spurs had failed to register more than one effort on target. Make no mistake about it, this is a priceless win, even moreso with a shocking pitch factored in. My Man of The Match was Ederson who oozed nonchalant calm throughout.
Wembley Stadium
FA Premier League
Referee: Kevin Friend of Leicester
| Tottenham Hotspur | Manchester City | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mahrez (6') | |||||||
| 1 Hugo Lloris | 31 Ederson | ||||||
| 2 Kieran Trippier | 2 Kyle Walker | ||||||
| 6 Davison Sánchez | 5 John Stones | ||||||
| 4 Toby Alderweireld | 14 Aymeric Laporte | ||||||
| 33 Ben Davies | 22 Benjamin Mendy | ||||||
| 15 Eric Dier | Winks 67' | 20 Bernardo Silva | |||||
| 19 Mousa Dembélé | Alli 75' | 25 Fernandinho | |||||
| 17 Moussa Sissoko | 21 David Silva | Kompany 89' | |||||
| 11 Erik Lamela | 26 Riyad Mahrez | Gabriel Jesus 90+2' | |||||
| 27 Lucas Moura | Eriksen 81' | 10 Sergio Agüero | De Bruyne 71' | ||||
| 10 Harry Kane | 7 Raheem Sterling | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| 7 Son Heung-Min | 4 Vincent Kompany | ||||||
| 8 Harry Winks | 17 Kevin De Bruyne | ||||||
| 16 Kyle Walker-Peters | 19 Leroy Sané | ||||||
| 20 Dele Alli | 30 Nicolas Otamendi | ||||||
| 22 Paulo Gazzaniga | 33 Gabriel Jesus | ||||||
| 23 Christian Eriksen | 47 Philip Foden | ||||||
| 24 Serge Aurier | 49 Aro Muric | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 4 | Goal attempts | 13 |
| 1 | On Target | 6 |
| 2 | Corners | 6 |
| 12 | Fouls | 13 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 48 | % | 52 |