Tottenham Topple City in a Title Race Bombshell
Liverpool are in the driver's seat now, with Arsenal (and Chelsea) still visible in the rearview.
This is a new series from The Football Weekend covering one great match from the past weekend in your inbox every Monday morning.
———————————
Erling Haaland stood over the ball in the center circle, waiting to restart play, a pout of glum frustration etched across his face.
Arsenal had done their work early in the day, dispatching Nottingham Forest in the 10am / 3pm hour, and it was up to Manchester City to match the result and keep pace, crucially, with pack-leaders Liverpool. A loss would leave the Citizens eight points adrift—nothing insurmountable, but a major statement, surely, that it’s the Reds from Merseyside who are the team to beat nearly one third of the way through this Premier League season.
These were joyous days on the Sky Blue side of Manchester, of course: Pep Guardiola signed a fresh contract last week to take him past a decade with the club, years filled with shiny silverware and win after triumph after victory. So much winning that the team developed an air of invincibility over time, the vibe that they are simply relentless, will not be beat, will get the goals to erase your lead, will pick up more points than you across 38 games. No matter how many you get, they will get a few more. In 2022-23, they spotted an imperious young Arsenal side eight points and came back to win it. In 2018-19, when Liverpool took 97 points, City went 98. They’ve relinquished the Premier League trophy for just 12 of the last 77 months.
But Guardiola’s squad walked out into something less than a roaring atmosphere at the Etihad, a not-so-shouty crowd that’s grown fat and happy on relentless success over that last decade. It is not the same ferocious atmosphere now. It’s sometimes downright genteel in the way the Emirates Stadium once became under Arsène Wenger. City’s away support is boisterous, an atmospheric addition to any arena in the league, but their home court has become a bloodless arena. The folks come for a show and down the years they’ve gotten it, but perhaps their instinct to pick the team up and urge them back into contention when they’re down, provide the Home Team Advantage, has atrophied.
And there were some forces of football nature here that Pep and his troops and their home support would need to grapple with, not least the Iron Law of Football: if you fail to take your chances, you will be punished.
A first-minute booking for Yves Bissouma in Tottenham’s deep midfield presaged City’s early dominance as they rampaged in behind the Spurs midfield line and created two good chances for Erling Haaland, their bionic #9 who was fresh off a hat trick for Norway in the week. But he passed up both of them, first dawdling on a low ball slid the box from Joško Gvardiol after the Croatian defender-winger scampered in and run at the Lilywhite back line. When it reached him, Haaland took a succession of small touches on his sledgehammer left foot trying to set the ball to shoot and allowed a defender to cut off his view of the goal, firing wide at the near post.
Then, on 11 minutes, he stood waiting eight yards out after Savinho spun off a defender and ran in on the back line again. But when the short pass came on time and with a decent weight to be hit, the Norwegian superstriker shot low without venom, denied by Guglielmo Vicario’s kick save.
Three minutes later, City were made to pay. Dejan Kulusevski stirred up the trouble for the first of many times throughout the evening, floating around the right wing with the ball in tow until he locked eyes with James Maddison streaking through the City team. The English attacker zipped in behind to meet a dipping cruise missile of a ball, perfectly timed from Kulusevski, volleying it past Ederson with aplomb and wheeling off into the corner to throw a trademark dart at the television camera.
City were stunned but not shellshocked—they’ve been known to concede the first goal throughout these dominant years. They came forward down the left to respond, and Phil Foden picked it up centrally to shoot over on the stretch, a half-chance. But City were warned again when Son Heung-min aimed a curling far-post effort from near the corner of the 18-yard-box that Ederson palmed away, and then Maddison struck again after 19 minutes.
City coughed up the ball in their own third, the spinning gears of their buildup machine popping out of place, the ticking hands out of sync, and Madison latched onto the loose ball 24 yards from goal. He fed Son at the top of the D then overlapped down the inside left channel, the #10 brushing right past his #7’s shoulder, almost passing him a note on his intentions. Son hit him with the reverse pass just as he broke through the back line, and Madison dinked it over the goalkeeper with the left foot to showcase his class, wheeling away into that corner again.
The Citizens’ noses were bloodied now, but no longtime observer would have considered them cooked. The shadow of invincibility still lingered, though the superhero’s cape was beginning to grow tattered. They generated some half chances, pops at goal rather than their usual surgical dismemberments of the opposition defense. It wasn’t until 60 minutes that they had another truly dangerous opportunity, Bissouma’s giveaway near his own goal offering Haaland the chance to jump on the ball, wheel around and whizz a left-footed pile-driver off Vicario’s crossbar near the far post. By that time, Tottenham had rampaged into City’s third again, breaking swiftly with so many Sky Blue shirts behind the ball, and Pedro Porro made it three.
The Guardiola supermachine had started to sputter, and the Etihad went quiet indeed. Vicario made his saves, but as time went on, City’s shots started skying over the crossbar as shocked partisans wailed in disbelief from the stands. Haaland put it couple right in his body, which the Italian—a serious shot-stopper even if he doesn’t always command his box—batted away with minimal fuss. The fire had gone out for Guardiola’s side by the time Timo Werner latched onto a loose City pass in deep midfield and ran at the back line yet again, sliding a low cross through the six-yard box for fellow substitute Brennan Johnson to finish the job.
4-0. Battered at the Etihad.
“Stay Humble” has surely aged worse than any tag line in recent history, the kind of thing one of John McClane’s enemies would utter before their comeuppance. So it’s been for Erling Haaland and his team, who’ve lost five in a row in all competitions and fallen eight points behind leaders Liverpool. Arne Slot’s side have started well, though they looked woozy after Southampton landed a couple of jabs to go 2-1 up at St. Mary’s the following day. Russell Martin’s side invited them back into the game with two chances presented on a silver platter, however, and Liverpool’s imperiled vibe was casually erased.
The Reds will drop points between now and May, but will anyone be in the same area code to capitalize? Arsenal will need to go on a City-like run of points accumulation over the next couple of months to change the script, while Chelsea are hanging around but may need another season before this young team is ready to sustain a challenge.
The top story, though—the only story considering Guardiola’s renewal of his vows and the phenomenal record he’s built in management across three countries—is that the City boat is rocking. It may require a serious January acquisition to deal with Rodri’s disappearance due to injury: İlkay Gündoğan was the latest pale imitation to slot into Pep’s deep midfield after Mateo Kovačić and others have been asked to try to fill the void. But they’ve got big matches to play in the here and now, before the transfer window pops open. In less than a week, after all, they’re headed to Anfield.
———————————
BONUS COVERAGE:
IPSWICH TOWN 1-1 MAN UNITED
Ruben Amorim’s first minutes on the sideline as manager of Manchester United could scarcely have gone better. The club’s once-talismanic academy product, Marcus Rashford, has endured a torrid few years in match play but popped up in the second minute to give his team a 1-0 lead at Portman Road.
The Red Devils had surged into life, it seemed, buoyed by the honeymoon under interim coach Ruud van Nistelrooy and the arrival of the new full-time boss, playing with the joyous freedom of ten Hag-less existence. But as the first half ground on, Ipswich Town got themselves back into it and more, showing some sharp play to fashion openings in the 18-yard box as United often found themselves reeling just a bit, stretching to get their blocks and keep the hosts out. It ended 1-1, but the Tractor Boys often looked the more likely winners.
They nearly struck when Liam Delap met a low cross with a precocious heel flick from a couple yards out—André Onana denied him dexterously—and in the final minutes when Jack Clarke latched onto a ball floated towards the back post and wheeled around from the byline to find Conor Chaplin for a shot from eight yards that was defanged by a partial block.
It was all a signal that Amorim has a job on his hands, which we all very well knew no matter how well he’s been doing down in Portugal over the last few years. He’s had just a few days with this bunch, and he’ll need time to communicate the method to his 3-4-3 madness. But there’s also just a more basic question here:
Are there enough good players in this United team for them to be good? They probably only have one top player at his position—Bruno Fernandes—along with a crew of promising youngsters: Kobbie Mainoo, Alejandro Garnacho, Amad Diallo. We haven’t seen Leny Yoro yet and he could join that group, but the rest of the squad is mostly veteran players who cannot cover the ground they used to in a league that prizes—demands—physicality.
Manuel Ugarte and Mainoo may prove a better central pairing than Christian Eriksen and Casemiro, who started here, but United just have so much to do. It may come down to whether—working with United’s new-look football executive team under Sir Jim Ratcliffe—Amorim is better at spending £200 million in the next transfer window. Surely they can’t spend it less effectively than they did in Erik ten Hag’s time.⚽︎