Matchday Live Post: Tottenham 4 – 1 Manchester City
By Ryan Wrenn
Halftime
It’s 1-1 at the break. Tottenham managed to concede an all-too-easy counterattacking goal after giving the ball away dumbly right on the edge of City’s penalty area. Toure took the ball down the pitch, passed to Kevin De Bruyne who deftly finished.
Prior to the goal, Spurs looked decent. They weren’t attacking in the same numbers as City were, but they were defending well and seemed to vaguely threaten when they did have the ball in the other half.
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If there’s one concrete fact about offense, it’s that you can’t score if you don’t shoot. Tottenham have managed about half as many shots as City have. They just aren’t getting the numbers in front of City’s goals to get those shots way – and when they have those shots have been too often off-target.
Tottenham were never going to press high up the pitch against City though. Instead, they were going to rely on some clever, quick passes delivered to those players that did get in the box. Who would deliver those passes though? Christian Eriksen.
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The problem is that Eriksen has so far had a spectacularly bad game. He’s recording a 59% pass success rate – many of those failed attempts to move play forward – and played some small part in the concession of City’s opening goal, first by now moving into the path of Walker’s pass then not attempting to stop Toure as the Ivorian raced down the pitch. He will either need to be subbed off at the half or tweak his game if Tottenham hope to improve.
Tottenham’s equalizer, when it came right at the death of the first half, was something of a surprise. Eric Dier scored his second of the season after some shockingly botched defending from City in their own box. The buildup play prior to the goal most certainly involved an offside that was not called, but City fans might calm down a bit when they realize how narrow a call De Bruyne’s goal was as well.
Check back toward the end of the game for more, hopefully more glowing reactions.
Next: Fulltime