Tottenham’s 10 best matches of 2016/17
By Ryan Wrenn
Tottenham 2 – 0 Manchester City
As commanding a win as that visit to Stoke proved to be, it still didn’t exactly leave an impression of Spurs being title contenders. Indeed, for the first few months of the season it appeared as if Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City would run away with the title.
They had won their first 10 matches of the season in all competitions, often by commanding margins. If such trends continued the Premier League season would be over by Christmas.
Pochettino was determined to smash that narrative however. After City suffered the first blemish of their season in a 3-3 draw against Celtic in the Champions League midweek, Spurs welcomed the Citizens to White Hart Lane. It would prove to be a turning point for both teams.
With Kane out injured, Pochettino was forced to field Son as essentially a false nine. He worked the channels and kept City’s surprisingly brittle defense guessing, which in turn freed up the quartet of attacking midfielders behind him to break through to Claudio Bravo’s goal.
Within ten minutes, City were down thanks to an Alesander Kolarov own-goal. Their lead secured, Spurs declined to relent on their pressure. With Victor Wanyama’s help in midfield, they cut off routes to Sergio Aguero and hassled any attempt of City to play out of defense.
The result were several more chances that would culiminate in Dele scoring in the 36th minute to double Spurs’ advantage.
City were unable to muster much of a comeback in the second half, though Bravo did save a penalty from Erik Lamela that threatened to make their afternoon even worse.
This was the first win of the season that suggested that Spurs hunting for their competitor’s scalps. We would see the same big game mentality much more over the subsequent weeks.