Kenya captain Victor Wanyama put up a man of the match performance as Tottenham Hotspur snapped Man City’s winning start to the season.
Wanyama was imperious in midfield, shielding the back four well and stifling the forward momentum of City’s players. With the win, Spurs ended Pep Guardiola’s unbeaten run in the league, halting an impressive six match winning streak. This moved Spurs to second on the log with just one point shy of league leaders City, remaining the only unbeaten team in the league.
Playing at home and with the crowd behind them, Spurs bossed the early proceedings, pressuring City into rushing their play. Their movement and energy was too much for City to live with, particularly troubling their less mobile midfield players like Fernando. It took just nine minutes for City to buckle under the pressure as Aleksandar Kolarov scored into his own net while trying to clear Danny Rose’s cross.
The absence of Kevin De Bruyne was clearly evident as City struggled with their transitional play. As result of this was their inability to keep their width which served them well in the first six games of the season but not on this occasion. Claudio Bravo who was roped in for them to play from the back seemed flustered and hurried on numerous occasions as Spurs swarmed all over City.
Spurs were dominant and hit a second shortly before the break when Deli Ali rounded off a fine passing move to send Tottenham two up. It could easily have been 3-0 for Spurs had Erik Lamela scored his penalty in the second half but was denied by Claudio Bravo in the City goal. Questions will be asked of the organisation at Spurs as Son Heung-min seemed set to take the spot kick only for Lamela to wrestle the ball from him and subsequently miss. Son has been the in-form striker in the absence of Harry kane and one would think he was the natural choice for a penalty taker. Why he ignored team protocol and selfishly took the kick is something that Mauricio Pochettno will have to get to the bottom of quickly.
That blemish aside, Spurs were absolutely fantastic and are definitely strong contenders to take the title.
