Tottenham Hotspur lost out to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium in the Premier League this evening by four goals to two.
In a tense start to the game, Riyad Mahrez was booked for preventing a Spurs counter-attack by cynically fouling Dejan Kulusevski, before Cristian Romero went into the book after a late challenge on Manuel Akanji.
A big chance came on 26 minutes when Nathan Ake heads Ivan Perisic cross away from Harry Kane when he was primed to shoot from close range. At the other end, Romero’s inch-perfect challenge denied Jack Grealish when he was bearing down on goal, and Heung-min Son’s close-range header hit Ake and was grasped comfortably by Ederson five minutes later.
Three minutes later, Hugo Lloris was called into action to divert Rico Lewis’ deflected effort away from goal. Lloris then came out sharply to deny Erling Haaland when he was released into Spurs’ box, and the Norweigian then headed a great chance over the bar barely a minute later when he beat Lloris to Mahrez’s cross.
And then, the unthinkable happened – as the half drew to a close, Spurs scored not once, but twice. First, City were punished for faffing about at the back, when Rodri miscontrolled Ederson’s risky pass out from the back under pressure from Rodrigo Bentancur and let the ball run to Kulusevski, who controlled the ball on his lethal left foot and tucked the ball bast City’s Brazlian keeper.
Ederson would have a moment to forget again two minutes later, when he parried Kane’s seemingly harmless effort out to Emerson Royal, who headed the ball up and over everyone into the back of City’s net to see Spurs enter the break two goals to the good.
However, this lead disappeared just as quickly as it arrived, when Julian Alvarez struck 6 minutes after the interval after a goalmouth scramble, before Haaland grabbed City’s equaliser two minutes later when he headed in Mahrez’s headed cut-back from close range as Spurs could not cope with the hosts’ renewed verve.
Perisic then missed a golden chance to restore Spurs’ lead when he scuffed Kulusevski’s cut-back onto Lewis, who diverted the ball onto the crossbar as the ball somehow stayed out.
The match continued at a frantic pace, and Mahrez completed the hosts’ come-back a few minutes after the hour mark when his ferocious effort on his weaker right foot deflected off Davies to beat Lloris at his near post after the Algerian bamboozled Perisic with some irresistible footwork.
As Spurs pushed for an equaliser late on, Ederson’s long ball was miscontrolled by substitute Clement Lenglet and fell to Mahrez, who finished neatly past Lloris for his second of the match to seal the points for City.
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