- Erling Haaland remained an unused substitute with injury problems piling up
- City now have one less competition to focus on having been knocked out the cup
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An absolute refusal to send for Erling Haaland told the story. The last remaining unbeaten run in the whole of England and Europe’s biggest leagues is finally over, at the end of October, but of more importance to Manchester City was no more injuries.
It is eight stricken first-team stars and counting after a costly night when, for all the inexperience out there, Tottenham preyed on the older heads.
A crestfallen Savinho looks like he’s done his ankle, Manuel Akanji tweaked a calf in the warm-up, adding to the absence of Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish, the new Ballon d’Or winner and a few more.
Pep Guardiola needs that international break quickly but has three games to navigate before then. Three long trips, too – Bournemouth and Brighton sandwiching Sporting in the Champions League.
By the end of their Carabao Cup campaign in north London, City had 11 fit established senior outfield professionals on their books. With a cotton forcefield, Haaland sat watching as City chased the tie with five kids on the pitch.
Teenager Jacob Wright twice went close, another teenager Nico O’Reilly was thwarted on the goal line by Yves Bissouma. City were actually better for the additions of youth but couldn’t quite complete a comeback against a club whose manager Ange Postecoglou has heaped pressure on himself to lift something this year.
The opening goal, after only five minutes, will make 18 other teams in the Premier League smile. Spurs manoeuvred a half-baked City press, four passes from goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario to Timo Werner sweeping past Stefan Ortega. Rival managers will have noticed Nathan Ake not pushing on to Archie Gray in the build-up and certainly jot down how Dejan Kulusevski left Ilkay Gundogan for dust. Still, it required a perfectly zipped cross by the Swede – cutting out Rico Lewis – to find Werner.
Gundogan gifted Werner another chance, misplacing a pass straight at him, but the effort was weak. Yet Spurs had a second midway through the first half. Again, a nicely planned move. Again, suspect defending.
No away player fancied racing out to meet Pape Sarr, 25 yards from Ortega, after Spurs had worked a short corner to him. Room to breathe and confidence with it, Sarr wonderfully bent round a jogging Matheus Nunes into the near post. The only real issue for Postecoglou up until that point was the worrying hamstring injury that reduced Micky van de Ven to tears as he trudged off.
Spurs had City’s number, as they so often have in this stadium, while two of Guardiola’s substitutes, Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland, shared a joke on the bench. There were moments for those selected, a few desperate lunges at balls flying across the box, with Phil Foden and Savinho given presentable chances. Foden volleyed over a Nunes pass and it felt like the league champions were just beginning to find a foothold.
And they had one seconds before the break. Nunes has stepped up a level in recent weeks and looked City’s main threat even before marching onto a super Savinho ball towards the back stick.
Gundogan did well to last the half without Guardiola reaching for his hook and the City manager still wasn’t happy after Ortega had to expertly tip Brennan Johnson’s effort from danger, berating his defenders for not engaging higher up the pitch. Lewis was done on a counter, only for Werner to flash wide.
Given the amount of changes and the faint experiments, these cup games do become classics. End-to-end, on the edge of boiling over, high octane. That suits Spurs, not City, and Kulusevski ought to have made the game safe.
City actually looked in decent shape as the night wore on and will probably take some heart in going close to forcing penalties. Yet the lack of real appetite to embarrass Spurs – because given the circumstances, that is what a result would have amounted to – was obvious as their hulking No 9 sat on the bench. He didn’t even go for a jog down the touchline.
