The ongoing English Premier League season produced one of the most shocking results so far yesterday as four times defending champions Manchester City were humiliated at their home turf by Tottenham Hotspur.
It was City’s fifth defeat in a row in all competitions and third in succession in the premier league, which is quite unimaginable under the stewardship of Pep Guardiola. It also ended their 52 game unbeaten run at the Etihad Stadium.
Most of the absentees of the previous games were back in the first eleven for City. Walker, Stones, Akanji and Gvardiol formed the back four while Lewis, Gundogan and Silva deployed the in the middle, with Foden and Savio on the wings to support Haaland up front.
Meanwhile, visitors Spurs also preferred to start in their usual 4-3-3 formation with Son, Solanke and Kulusevski in the forward line while Maddison, Bissouma and Sarr were in the three men midfield.
City started positively against the north Londoners who themselves were looking to get back on track following an embarrassing defeat to newly promoted Ipswich Town a fortnight ago. In the 11th minute, Haaland was denied by Spurs goalie Vicario’s leg after a defence splitting pass by Savio found the Norwegian who drilled a low shot towards the middle of the goal.
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A couple of minutes later, against the run of play, from the right wing Kulusevski lofted a lovely cross towards Maddison who arrived with perfect timing to latch on it and stroke the ball inside the left post to put the visitors in front. In the 18th minute, Ederson pulled off a wonderful save with his outstretched left hand after Son’s strike was bound for the top right corner. But the Brazilian couldn’t prevent birthday boy Maddison to score his and Spurs’ second in the 20th minute. City lost the ball deep in their own territory and Son provided a tidy pass to the England international whose delightful chipped finish made the score-line 2-0.
Dominic Solanke’s goal bound strike was denied by Ederson again in the 28th minute after Haaland tried to cut the deficit at the other end with a tremendous shot five minutes earlier.
Nathan Ake was introduced after the restart to replace Stones at the City defence but that could not prevent the high flying Spurs to score their third of the evening. Full back Pedro Porro was put through by Solanke and the Spaniard showed brilliant composure inside the box to fire into the left side of the net to put more agony on the home crowd after 52 minutes.
Haaland again came close of scoring on the hour mark when his strike from a tight angle clipped the top of the crossbar.
Pep Guardiola introduced Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish from the bench, hoping to change the bizarre looking score-line. But the Spurs substitutes had other ideas. In the 3rd minute of stoppage time, Brennan Johnson got an assist from fellow substitute Timo Werner and the former made no mistake to tap the ball into an empty net to sign off in style.
A potentially season-defining trip to Anfield is up next for Guardiola’s side, who trail leaders Liverpool by five points with a game extra played.
In the other premier league fixtures of last night, Arsenal defeated Nottingham Forest 3-0, Chelsea defeated Leicester 2-1, Wolves emerged victorious 4-1 at Fulham while Everton and Aston Villa drew their respective encounters against Brentford and Crystal Palace 0-0 and 2-2 respectively.
2 comments
Well narrated. Keep it up Abhirup
Excellent review of the match. Looking for more such refreshing contents from you.