Man City Won the Big Moments—and Rode Their Luck—to Take Pole Position

Tottenham played well (despite their conflicts of interest) but faltered in every moment that mattered.

Tottenham’s own fans, at least some of them, wanted them to lose the game. A win or even a draw against Manchester City would put Arsenal in the driver’s seat to win a first Premier League title in 20 years, and it was too much for some Spurs supporters to bear. Their manager, Ange Postecoglou, was irritated by questions about it beforehand.

“I suppose in these last 16 years [since Spurs last won a trophy], there have been years where Tottenham have had bragging rights. Walk through the halls, mate, there’s no bragging rights there. There’s none,” he said. “They’ve just got pictures of Bill Nicholson and people who have actually achieved.”

Postecoglou was left frustrated by his team’s performance in a few key moments.

It was a call for Spurs to live for themselves and their own achievements rather than their blood feud with another club, and his team put in a performance worthy of the boss’s competitive spirit. Tottenham soaked up the pressure well and they sprung out swiftly to strike at City, but they failed to take their chances and switched off in crucial areas to hand the visitors the game. The three-peat champions had yet to win in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in league play since it opened in 2019, the only place they seem to be hexed outside of Anfield. But this was a moments game, and City triumphed in every one—or Spurs lost them.

There was Son Heung-min’s clean break in behind the Manchester City defense, a golden chance to take two points off them after a catastrophic error from the otherwise stalwart Manuel Akanji. His manager Pep Guardiola collapsed to the ground in the technical area in an instant, watching from floor level.

The South Korean, one of the league’s deadliest marksmen, mustered a rolling effort with his right foot that didn’t exactly blister the turf. Keeper Stefan Ortega, on as a substitute for a distraught Ederson after the big Brazilian collided with Tottenham’s Sergio Romero, threw out a thrilling kick save to deny Son, but the Spurs captain really should have done better. The stadium gasped, the visiting City fans in horrified relief and the Spurs fans feeling nearly the same. Like every champion, Guardiola’s team required a dash of luck here.

They’d nearly had some when Tottenham offered to score on themselves twice, first on 15 minutes when they wilted under the City press and a muffed clearance from Pierre-Emile Højbjerg fell right to Phil Foden in the 18-yard box. A minute into the second half, they Played Out of the Back without playing out, pinging the ball around their own third with deranged enthusiasm only to present the ball to Akanji. He bobbled it first time towards none other than Kevin De Bruyne, dead center in the box. The Belgian maestro’s volley was clean but arrived at a good height for Tottenham goalkeeper Vicario to bat it away.

Tottenham had a chance of their own early on, as Rodrigo Betancur saw his sharp hit palmed over by Ederson after a sweeping move from the hosts. But from there, most of the opportunities fell to City, though they were few and far between and the champs rarely looked comfortable apart from a brief spell midway through the first half where they really started to impose themselves on the contest. And then, 50 minutes in, the game’s first defining moment arrived.

The aforementioned Cristian Romero, adored by Tottenham fans and lauded in some circles as one of the league’s top center backs, jumped into a 50-50 challenge with Foden near the halfway line and failed to take ball, man, or both. The young Englishman latched onto the looping second ball and was in behind the Spurs back line, by now hurtling towards its own goal with De Bruyne, Erling Haaland, and various other dark blue kits surging through the middle with them.

Romero came up short in 3 phases of the same sequence.

Foden blurred past Betancur down the left and put in a ball that Tottenham initially dealt with. They dropped into the box, but as Bernardo Silva came onto the ball down the right, Spurs became a garden of statues in their own box. Romero was the deepest, ensuring De Bruyne was onside as he cut through them with a run and Silva found him with a deft reverse pass. The center back’s eyes were beamed to that spectacle—he was ball-watching—and he failed to pick up Haaland as he lurked behind him and made a run off his back at just the right moment to tap in De Bruyne’s low cross, 1-0. The two phases of play following the Tottenham defender’s first mistake near the halfway line spanned all of 17 seconds.

That is the lethality that City bring to proceedings, and Tottenham could not match it when Dejan Kulusevski had two chances to test Ortega, including when a fortuitous bounce put him in 1-on-1 at a sharp angle and he just glanced the underside of the keeper’s thigh as he nearly put it through him. The Swedish wide playmaker also jumped on a mistake from Rúben Dias at the byline only to be denied by Ortega while white jerseys screamed for a square ball across the box.

The Son chance made for three massive Spurs opportunities, two of which were self-inflicted by the Citizens, and it’s enough to make you wonder whether The Internet would be screaming, “BOTTLE JOBS!” at the Sky Blues if one of them had gone in. But of course, it being Tottenham, they did not, and the Lilywhites completed the job of ushering Guardiola’s gargantuans towards yet another title when Pedro Porro got all twisted up in his own box and swung a leg to trip substitute Jérémy Doku with a minute left in the 90. Haaland dispatched the penalty with automatonic precision, and those Spurs fans that were rooting against their own team can rest safe in the knowledge they will not be watching Champions League football at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next season.

City will take the title if they beat West Ham on Championship Sunday. Tottenham are finished in the race for the Top Four.

It had been a ghostly atmosphere at times, the conflicted home contingent gritting their teeth through it and the away section on considerable edge. In the postgame presser, Postecoglou said Tottenham had lost the big moments and lacked discipline, but he also made some more profound declarations.

“I think the last 48 hours have revealed to me that the foundations are quite fragile, mate,” the Aussie said, soon adding: “That’s alright, that just means we have to go back to the drawing board with some things.”

And when asked if those things were outside or inside the club:

“Outside, inside, everywhere. It’s been an interesting exercise.”

And asked about whether fan sentiment in the stadium could have had an impact:

“It is what it is mate, I can’t dictate what people do. People are allowed to express themselves in any way they want. But yeah, when we’ve got late winners in games, it’s because the crowd’s helped us.”

In the end, Tottenham have few achievements to call their own this season. Unai Emery and Aston Villa are headed to the new-look Champions League next season, and for now Spurs will be in the Europa League. They could still slip further down the table if Newcastle or Chelsea can pull even on points, as both now have superior goal differentials. The Europa Conference League would feel a long way off the beginning of this season, when the white shirts of North London were riding sky high, unbeaten at the top of the table into October. Now they’re 23 points behind the hated neighbors, but at least they didn’t help Arsenal win the league.⚽︎