FIRST OF MANY? FINGERS CROSSED!
Bergwijn’s debut belter helps skittle sloppy City
THE last time Manchester City went two games without scoring was almost four years ago. That season, under Manuel Pellegrini, City won only the EFL Cup. A repeat is beginning to look very possible, maybe even likely.
City are listing a little under Pep Guardiola, by their own impeccable standards at least. After this calamity-riddled defeat in London, they are closer to Crystal Palace in the league table than they are leaders Liverpool. As it stands, Liverpool need just six more wins to take City’s title. Champions by mid-March? What a remarkable thing that would be.
Currently, City are only eight points behind where they were this time last season. It doesn’t sound much but in terms of their football they are a million miles away — and that is what makes their prospects so uncertain.
This is not a team that looks like it can win the Champions
League. They have Real Madrid on the horizon and must improve quickly.
Under Guardiola there has long been a sense of certainty about City, just like there was about the great editions of his Barcelona team. Currently, they do not have that.
For all their depths of creative talent, there is a skittishness about them and this is what cost the visitors in front of a Tottenham crowd who did not know whether to cheer or laugh.
As well as Tottenham closed out this game, Jose Mourhino’s team scored with their first shot in the 63rd minute. Over the whole match they registered only three shots compared to City’s 18. But City found a way to lose. They were not unlucky.
No, they were careless. They made poor decisions in and out of possession and it cost them. By the end of a pulsating afternoon, they simply looked as though they had forgotten how to score.
Tottenham and their supporters were delirious. This was a big day for Mourinho. After losing at home to Chelsea and to Liverpool, this is the kind of result he was hired to produce. Wins over Guardiola always mean something.
And it was a big day for new signing Steven Bergwijn, too. The young Dutch midfielder — signed for £27million in midweek — scored a sumptuous goal, receiving a pass from Tanguy Ndombele on the edge of the area, chesting it down and volleying it home in one quick movement.
But on the whole this was a story of City misadventure, of a team that looks like it needs a midseason refresh more than most. It started with a missed penalty towards the end of the first half.
City were the more progressive team from the off. Riyad Mahrez was the game’s best player at that point and City would have led had Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris not touched Sergio Aguero’s shot on to the post after he had been set free by the Algerian in the 27th minute.
Kevin de Bruyne had also come close but the award of the penalty in the 40th minute was the real gift
horse. Referee Mike Dean had initially waved away appeals after Aguero was felled by Serge Aurier.
But when VAR intervened to overturn the decision two whole minutes later, Ilkay Gundogan placed his kick too close to Lloris and the shot was saved.
Briefly, chaos reigned. Raheem Sterling fell as he challenged Lloris for the rebound and again VAR was involved. This time no penalty but what happened next turned out to be pivotal. As players pushed and shoved while Sterling was accused of diving, Toby Alderweireld and Oleksandr Zinchenko were both booked. For the City player, his afternoon was halfway to be being ruined.
Aguero then missed an open goal in first-half injury time before Gundogan did likewise after being fed clumsily by Sterling — who should really have taken a shot himself — in front of a target guarded by a single Tottenham defender.
With Spurs so unambitious and playing without a recognised centre forward, City perhaps suspected the chances would keep coming.
But when Mahrez telegraphed a corner straight to harry Winks in the 61st minute, the Tottenham midfielder raced upfield and was barged to the ground by Zinchenko. Yellow card. Red Card. In an instant the game changed direction and was not to switch back.
Bergwijn’s goal was a beauty, a strike of real purity. Before long he succumbed to cramp and no wonder. By the time he had walked around the perimeter of the field towards the dugouts, he had made a few thousand new friends and seen his team score again.
Once more the shot came from the edge of the penalty area. This time, Son heung-min’s strike was taken past ederson by a touch off Fernandinho’s boot. Otherwise the City goalkeeper would have saved it. But by now — the 71st minute — City had surrendered any right to good fortune. By the end, Guardiola was sitting back in his chair with the look of a movie goer who had seen the film before. he hadn’t, not like this. his team continue to surprise him — and not
in a good way.