City slickers can be sluggers too
FIFTY years ago this month Manchester City beat Tottenham on a frozen pitch at Maine Road in a match that was famously described as the ‘ballet on ice’.
Joe Mercer’s team headed by the Holy Trinity of Colin Bell, Franny Lee and Mike Summerbee went on to pip United to the title.
Saturday’s ‘ballet in the freezing fog’ left little doubt that Pep Guardiola’s dancing, prancing stars will do the same this season.
And for all their delightful skills, precision passing and intelligent running, City showed a steely, resilient side to their character that reinforces the belief that they are the complete team.
When Spurs realised they could not match them football-wise, they started to kick them. Harry Kane and Dele Alli could easily have been sent off for their respective X-rated challenges on Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne.
But far from making those players think twice it provoked them into playing even better.
Moments after Alli had felled De Bruyne with a potential legbreaker, the Belgian stormed through to score the second goal while Sterling recovered from Kane’s assault on his shin – as well as the embarrassment of missing two sitters – to score two tap-ins to put the gloss on City’s 16th consecutive Premier League win.
When Alex Ferguson was asked about his favourite United team, he always leaned towards the 1993-94 ‘steel and skill’ Double winners.
City showed they can withstand the bully-boy treatment and dish it out themselves as demonstrated by Nicolas Otamendi’s dangerously high boot into Kane’s face.
By his reaction on the touchline, Guardiola clearly felt Alli should have seen red rather than yellow but afterwards he understandably wanted to focus on the quality of his team’s performance in a win that equals his best winning run at Barcelona and leaves him just three short of his 19-game winning run at Bayern Munich.
He said: “We wanted to play, Tottenham wanted to play. Sometimes the situation is hard and aggressive, so with that there’s always a risk. But I’m not talking about that situation.
“What we want to do is play football. That is no secret. You are honest, the ball is there, we’re going to try to play. It’s the best way to respect our profession.” Guardiola was lavish in his praise of De Bruyne, both for his ability on the ball and his willingness to put in the hard yards.
So it seems churlish to talk of negatives but Sterling missed two open goals – one of them after Gabriel Jesus’s penalty had bounced off the post – while Sergio Aguero could not hide his dismay at being substituted early.
He could not really complain because City scored three and could have had six after Jesus replaced him. Guardiola said: “I can understand him. He’s a top player and he wants to play but I needed a little more energy with Gabriel in that position. That’s why I decided to take the decision. I don’t want to hurt the players.”
With a 21-point deficit on City, Spurs’ title hopes are over but the bigger concern is for Mauricio Pochettino to salvage a Champions League place next season when they move into their new stadium.
But he will not press the panic button, insisting: “For many clubs it will hurt a lot because the gap is massive but I think we have been doing a fantastic job in the last few seasons and the team is doing what it needs to do – learn, improve, step by step, to one day try to be in the place that Manchester City are in today.”
We want to play but there’s risk