Minutes into the game, Kevin De Bruyne passed the ball to Raheem Sterling, who made a fine run infield. Tottenham defender Danny Rose had to follow the nifty City player and jockeyed him to periphery of the box. Sterling – perhaps mildly surprised by the astute defending in a precarious situation – did little and the danger had been sniffed out by Tottenham. It was an excellent attack, matched by an excellent defence.
The moment was instructive. Early on, aligned with the ‘Guardiolan’ philosophy and aesthetics of the beautiful game, City had, yet again, shown a glimpse of the football that could be. It was a flash, gone in a nanosecond, of how good City can be. But then came the rest of the match.
For much of the game, City were imperious. They probed and pressed. They passed and attacked, all with a delightful smoothness. In the 23rd minute, Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino were mirror images, coaching their teams, with much arm-waving and intense gesticulation. But by then, City were so dominant that Tottenham’s disjointedness was merely incidental in a universe bend to Guardiola’s will.
Reverse of first leg
The game was very much a reverse of Tottenham vs Manchester City earlier this season. At White Hart Lane, the Invincibles were playing the Invincibles, with Manchester City, top of the table, and Tottenham, second, in a watered down, if not ridicule, attempt of emulating that marvelously talented 2004 Arsenal XI.
Guardiola seemingly hadn’t accepted the 2-0 result of the first leg. His team suffocated Tottenham with a high press and unrelenting vigor. There was much to admire about City and their surrealistic attacking lineup of David Silva, Leroy Sané, De Bruyne and Sterling, with Sergio Agüero in the most advanced position. In the absence of Belgian central defender Jan Vertonghen, Tottenham’s defence was in disarray.
But all the pressure the hosts exerted in the opening stanza yielded little. At the half, the game was goalless. Then, in a madcap second half, Sané and De Bruyne scored, but both goals were crafted in part by the erroneous manners of Tottenham’s Hugo Lloris.
The Frenchman tends to be one of the Premier League’s more reliable goalkeepers, but not so this time. It was bizarre for him to err twice. From a psychological viewpoint both howlers were related. Sané’s goal was still on Lloris’s mind when De Bruyne tapped in City’s second. Lloris went down to meet a cross, but his handling was clumsy and the ball squirted out. The Belgian midfielder De Bruyne jutted out his boot.
Spurs comeback
But in spite of being two goals to the deficit, the visitors came back, without much effort. They didn’t have to claw their way back into game. They leveled easily, a measure of City’s weaknesses. For all their superiority, City’s defence crumbled. That was not a great surprise given the ponderous nature of City’s rearguard throughout the season. An out-of-form, aging Yaya Toure was shielding the back four, but to little effect.
It was a gamble that Guardiola had taken and one that backfired. City didn’t display the same urgency of the first half and the London club took advantage, their attacking prowess highlighted in the outstanding craftsmanship’s of the second goal. Harry Kane flicked the ball with a fleeting touch to Son Heung-min, who drove the ball into the net.
That set the scene for a frantic finale in which Gabriel Jesus, City’s Brazilian newbie, had scored the winner but then, in the midst of his somewhat cocky lap honor, realised that he had been adjudged to be offside.
And so the final score read 2-2. For Guardiola and City, who have long been out of contention for the league title, the equation remains simple: they don’t score enough and concede goals far too easily. That is an over-simplification of the Spaniard’s predicament, but also a problem that he will need to solve quickly.