Many thanks to Declan Mulcahy for his report:-

Wednesday 26 February 2025, 7:30pm
Premier League
Tottenham Hotspur (0) 0 Manchester City (1) 1

Scorer:-
Haaland, 12

Tottenham Hotspur (4-3-3):
1 G Vicario; 23 Pedro Porro, 14 A Gray, 4 K Danso, 13 D Udogie (24 D Spence 67); 15 L Bergvall, 30 R Bentancur (29 P Sarr 67), 10 J Maddison (c) (16 T Werner 82); 22 B Johnson, 11 M Tel (21 D Kulusevski 66), 15 W Odobert (7 H-M Son 67)

Subs not used: 31 A. Kinsky, 3 S Reguilon, 8 Y Bissouma, 44 D Scarlett

Booked: Bentancur (31 foul on Nunes), Maddison (57 foul on Savinho), Sarr (87 foul on Foden)
Captain's Armband: Maddison (Son 67)

Manchester City (4-2-3-1): Pep Guardiola
31 Ederson; 27 M Nunes, 45 A Khusanov, 3 R Dias (c), 24 J Gvardiol; 8 M Kovacic (19 I Gundogan 94), 14 N Gonzalez (20 Bernardo Silva 74); 26 Savinho (87 J McAtee 90); 7 O Marmoush (47 P Foden 74), 11 J Doku (10 J Grealish 93); 9 E Haaland

Subs not used: 18 S Ortega, 6 N Ake, 82 R Lewis, 17 K De Bruyne

No bookings

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Attendance: 60,820
Referee: Jarred Gillett. Assistants: Ian Hussin, Darren Cann. Fourth official: Rob Jones. VAR: Graham Scott. Assistant VAR: Sian Massey-Ellis.

Haaland scores the only goal in a game of missed chances

Erling Haaland returned from injury to score the goal which gave Manchester City victory. Spurs will rue missing a couple of good chances but City will counter that they missed even more scoring opportunities.

Ange Postecoglou rested three players from the weekend Djed Spence, Dejan Kulusevski and Heung-min Son and replaced them with Destiny Udogie, James Maddison and Wilson Odobert. Timo Werner replaced Mikey Moore among the substitutes. Unless Moore was injured it was strange to replace a player with a bright future with someone whose days are numbered. This was the second youngest team that Spurs have fielded in the Premier League with an average age of 23 years and 243 days old and the youngest chosen by Postecoglou. The youngest team was that in September 1992 against Sheffield Wednesday (23y 97d).

Pep Guardiola made four changes from the Manchester City side which was outplayed at home by Liverpool at the weekend. Erling Haaland returned from injury and Matheus Nunes, Ruben Dias and Matteo Kovacic were all elevated from substitutes to starters while Rico Lewis, Nathan Ake, Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden dropped to the bench.

At the weekend Ipswich Town dominated the first ten minutes but tonight Manchester City dominated the entire first half.

Beginning in the sixth minute City had three chances in three minutes. Savinho teed up Haaland but he shot straight at Guglielmo Vicario. Then Haaland had the ball in the box and Vicario went to ground at his feet to deny him an opportunity. Udogie then cut out a City attack which had Guardiola raising his arms in frustration.

Spurs' first foray into the City box saw Porro send a long ball towards Maddison but Ederson reached it first.

Unfortunately City counter-attacked instantly. Doku made a run down the left before crossing the ball. Haaland scored with a shot. Udogie was the closest to him but was unable to intervene. Haaland has now scored 10 at home and 10 away in three Premier League seasons. The only other player to achieve this feat is Harry Kane.

Doku made a good run into the box and the running parallel to the goal had a shot which Vicario saved. He then crossed from the left to Savinho. The latter was totally unmarked and should have doubled City's lead but his effort hit the ground and went over the bar. It was a bad miss.

Doku who was enjoying a lot of freedom down the left again provided Haaland with an opportunity by Vicario made a fine save. Danso blocked an effort by Savinho.

Bentancur had earlier been booked for a tackle on Nunes. But ten minutes later City were guilty of two quite robust tackles Nunes on Udogie and Kovacic on Bentancur but referee Gillett didn't issue a card in either case.

Spurs finally had a couple of attempts towards the end of the half. Maddison sent a curling free kick into the box but it was punched out by Ederson. Danso produced a header towards the corner of the goal from a Porro free kick but Ederson pushed it away for a corner.

City dominated the first half. They had 15 touches in the Spurs box, four shots on target and an xG (expected goals) of 1.91. So City were creating good chances. Spurs meanwhile had 6 touches in the City box, two shots of goal and an xG of 0.09.

There were no changes at the break. Given City's dominance it was perhaps surprising that Postecoglou didn't alter anything at that point.

Odobert made a run into the City box shortly after the break. He and Kovacic had a coming together but it didn't merit a penalty.

Savinho was almost through but was blocked by Udogie. Another shot by the same player deflected off Danso.

Spurs then started to dominate. Porro sent a cross from the right across the City goal but Odobert just couldn't reach it. Ederson saved a Danso header from a free kick. In between Maddison was booked for stopping Savinho from starting a counter-attack.

Maddison set Odobert up for a shot but it was palmed out by Ederson for a corner. In quick succession a Bentancur header from a corner was saved as was a shot from Porro. Then Udogie robbed Savinho and set up Tel but his shot was blocked.

Postecoglou had been waiting for a break in play to make substitutions. He had lined up three but after the wait increased it to four. Spence, Sarr, Kulusevski and Son replaced Udogie, Bentancur, Tel and Odobert.

Johnson headed over from a Maddison corner and Sarr had a shot blocked.

Guardiola made his first changes with Bernardo Silva and Foden replacing Gonzalez and Marmoush.

Spurs had a great opportunity to equalise when Johnson crossed from the right and Ederson made a fine save from Son. It was a case of deja vu since in the 86th minute of the corresponding fixture last year in May 2024 Son had an opportunity to level the score at 1-1 but substitute goalkeeper Stefan Ortega made a brilliant save.

There was a coming together between Danso and Doku where the former could have handled the ball but the decision was a free kick in favour of the Spurs man.

Two minutes into time added on Archie Gray made a goal saving tackle.

In the third of the four minutes added on Haaland bulldozed his way into the Spurs box with the ball and went past a couple of Spurs players before putting the ball into the net. The City players celebrated while their Spurs counterparts appealed for a handball. There was a lengthy pause while the video footage was assessed. There was a coming together between Haaland and Danso in which one or both of the players could have handled the ball.

A decision was reached and communicated to Mr. Gillett. What hadn't been clear was that he blew the whistle the moment the goal was scored because he considered that Haaland had handled the ball. VAR decided there wasn't sufficient evidence to change his decision.

The time added on was extended to nine minutes because of the delay in adjudicating the goal attempt. In a final Spurs attack Porro made a run on the right and crossed to Son. He didn't connect well with the ball but with a combination of the back of his head and his back looped the ball to Sarr on his left. Sarr managed to head the ball over the bar when it would have been easier to score. Perhaps he wasn't expecting to receive the strange pass from Son.

After the final whistle Son was observed to be having an intense conversation with referee Jarred Gillett. The "Time for a Change" banner was also in evidence being held up close to the pitch.

Manchester City have lost 14 of 27 matches since Spurs eliminated them from the Carabao Cup so this was an opportunity for Spurs. It didn't happen and thus ended Spurs attempt to be the first team ever to complete three wins in a season over both Manchester City and Manchester United. Given that it has never happened before perhaps it was too much to hope for.

Spurs last achieved more than two wins in a season against City in a quadruple in 1992-93. The fourth match on 7 March 1993 when Spurs won 4-2 is still remembered for a series of incidents which took place. Nayim scored in the 87th minute to complete a hat-trick and put Spurs 4-1 ahead. Turner then put the ball in the net for a potential fifth goal but it was disallowed after a very late flag was raised. Phelan then reduced the deficit to 4-2.

This was the cue for City supporters to invade the pitch. It took mounted police and police with dogs 13 minutes to clear the pitch.

When play resumed Spurs were awarded a penalty when Curle fouled Turner. Teddy Sheringham deliberately missed the penalty to avoid provoking further crowd trouble and the match ended with Spurs winning 4-2. City were given a suspended sentence of a £50,000 fine and a match played behind closed doors.

This was the fourth time Spurs have lost and failed to score in a home match under Ange Postecoglou, with three of those being defeats to Manchester City (0-1 in January 2024, 0-2 in May 2024 and 0-1 tonight). The fourth was against Arsenal earlier this season.

As a result of this defeat Spurs drop to 13th position in the table as Crystal Palace won yesterday. The minimum goal should be to finish in the top half of the table. It won't be easy as Spurs are nine points behind 10th place with eleven games to play.

Spurs have the weekend off while the FA Cup fifth round takes place. The next match is in eight days time away to AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League.

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