Everyone thought the title race was all over... it isn’t now!
PUNDITS, bookmakers, every manager in the Premier League, Manchester City followers, Tom, Dick and Harry, even Liverpool loyalists. They thought it was all over. Well, it isn’t now. We have a title race, we have a finale to look forward to, we have another epic tussle to relish.
Thanks, ironically, to the brilliance of Harry Kane, Pep Guardiola and Manchester City will soon be feeling the heat of Liverpool’s breath on their necks.
Jurgen Klopp’s men will surely dispose of Leeds United on Wednesday and would then be just three points behind City, having played the same number of matches.
Liverpool come to the Etihad in early April.
Considering this was City’s first Premier League loss in well over three months, it seems an extremely odd thing to say… but it feels as though the momentum is with Liverpool.
And it was Kane, seemingly City-bound last summer and at his most imperious here, who gave Liverpool’s cause another positive nudge.
This was all about the remodelled Kane, the self-styled hybrid of striker and playmaker.
Drop deep, collect possession, look for the through ball, as he did on several occasions, most notably in the build-up to the opening goal.
But he still has the keenest eye for an opening, the sharpest of penalty box brains, the quickest of finishing feet, as typified by his first second-half goal.
And the England captain still has a muscular scoring presence, giving Spurs the dramatic winner in added time after Riyad Mahrez had scored a second City equaliser from the penalty spot following VAR’S identification of a Cristian Romero handball.
This was a masterclass from Kane and a memorable triumph for Antonio Conte.
When he was not busy lighting and then trying to extinguish fires, Conte must have enjoyed preparing for the challenge of Guardiola and this formidable City side.
Defending narrow, Spurs invited the opposition full-backs to advance and when possession was won, it was played into the areas vacated by Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo.
That is exactly how the breakthrough was manufactured, Kane’s first-time pass releasing Heung-min Son into vast, unpopulated expanses of left-field land.
Unselfishly, Son handed the goalscoring honour to Dejan Kulusevski, who made an extremely impressive first Premier League start after his
January loan move from Juventus. Just within that single goal was sufficient evidence to prove that life still remains in the title race.
They might have a very good defensive record but City, through quick and incisive counter-play, can still be got at.
In their current form, Liverpool’s attacking ensemble will fancy their chances when they come to the Etihad, that is for sure.
And the truth is there will be the odd game when City do not perform to their usual standards.
This was certainly one of them. For longish spells, a midfield combination of Rodri, Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne looked surprisingly laborious. If anything,
Gundogan, captain for the evening and scorer of the first equaliser after Hugo Lloris had coughed up a Raheem Sterling cross, was the sprightliest of the trio. Despite their uncharacteristic sloppiness, City still dominated possession, while Spurs and Conte were still happy to load the defensive numbers and invite City to break them down. It is a familiar storyline at the Etihad. What is not familiar is that teams hold out with some degree of comfort – as Tottenham did – and threaten to score on almost every occasion they mount a counter-attack, as Tottenham did.
Only a tight VAR offside call and an Ederson smother denied Kane a second before he headed in the clincher after the Mahrez spot-kick seemed to have salvaged a point for City.
Spurs celebrated a famous double over Guardiola’s side and, down the road, Klopp probably raised a glass of something to Antonio and Harry.
A few days ago, Guardiola had a colourful way to describe City’s Merseyside rivals.
And you suspect he is about to find out what a “pain in the a***” Liverpool can be.