How Tottenham stunned Manchester City

At the end of a strange fortnight for Tottenham Hotspur, the defining image will be Ange Postecoglou pumping his fist in the air triumphantly on the touchline at the Etihad Stadium.

Spurs lost their last game shortly before the international break at home against Ipswich Town (the newly promoted team celebrated their first win of the season at the eleventh attempt), announced a strangely timed redesign of the club’s crest and received criticism for bringing up Rodrigo Bentancur’s seven-point ban from the game the Football Association for racist comments about his teammate and captain Son Heung-min. Ahead of this trip north, the pressure was on to avoid a sixth defeat in 12 games.

It should be a special evening for Manchester City.

Before kick-off there was a presentation for Rodri to celebrate the midfielder winning the 2024 Ballon d’Or as the best footballer in the world last year, and this was also the first game since Pep Guardiola signed a two-year contract extension to a contract that was due to expire next summer.

What no one expected was Tottenham beating City 4-0.

This meant they beat the champions for the second time in four weeks.

The roots of Tottenham’s stunning victory can be traced back to Postecoglou’s press conference following the 2-1 home defeat to Ipswich. The Australian took responsibility for their disappointing performance and admitted he would consider changing his approach. The subsequent two-week international break gave him time to reflect, and the biggest beneficiary of this was James Maddison.

Most of the club’s first team were on international duty, but Maddison was left out of England’s plans for the games against Greece and the Republic of Ireland. Maddison’s form has been inconsistent this season and he was named to the substitutes’ bench for Spurs’ two Premier League games before last night. It felt like a big task to start him against City in a game that required a lot of defensive work.

“He was really good for us at the beginning of the season and had a few flat games, but the whole team did that,” Postecoglou said. “I also believe there is more to Madders and that’s on me. I always say that is my role as a manager. If I’m not getting the most out of the players, the team against Ipswich or individuals, then it’s about self-reflection: “Can I do something different with them?”

“The thing with Madders was that he obviously didn’t go out for international duty. He had two weeks with us and the coaches worked really hard with him and he trained really hard. I could see it and said he was ready for a big game.”

Maddison’s two goals that gave Tottenham a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes last night will grab the headlines, but his overall performance was phenomenal. He intercepted a through ball from Phil Foden, fought off Bernardo Silva and knew how to control possession.

He drew City forwards in before whizzing balls past them to launch attacks. It was the perfect way to celebrate yesterday’s 28th birthday.

“I left the team for a few games and when you come out of the team and you’re a bigger name or leader of the group, people start asking questions and pointing fingers, but I feel really good” Maddison told the BBC highlights show Match of the Day. “I never have any doubts about myself. Sometimes you go through tough times, I had a few bad games, but I have the confidence to know that I will get through it and be there for my team, and I was today.”

Maddison has been overshadowed by Spurs teammate Dejan Kulusevski this season. The Sweden international’s permanent move into the central attacking midfield role has made him one of the best and most exciting players in the division. However, against City, Kulusevski returned to his previous position on the right wing and caused chaos. The 24-year-old told reporters afterwards that this game was “a perfect fit for us”.

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“City have a lot of possession, so sometimes we can rest when we defend,” said Kulusevski. “There’s so much space up there, we play one against one and then it’s always dangerous because we have a lot of quality. It’s always great to play against great teams because they always want to play football. When you play against weaker teams, sometimes that’s not the case. There’s not a lot of football being played because there are a lot of fouls and injuries and it’s slow going.”

Kulusevski spoke about his opponents’ man-marking strategy. City tried to win the ball high up the pitch, but when Tottenham avoided their pressing, Dominic Solanke, Son and Kulusevski often found themselves in dangerous counterattack situations. Pedro Porro’s goal to make it 3-0 at the start of the second half is a prime example. Kulusevski overwhelmed Ilkay Gündogan in the middle of the pitch and Spurs took advantage of the large gaps that opened up.

Maddison celebrates with Porro after the full-back scored Spurs’ third goal (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

“We knew we had to defend at different times and with (Kulusevski) and Sonny out there I thought if we could get the ball to them really early, City would be pretty aggressive,” Postecoglou said. “They (City) like to defend almost man-to-man because they have great defenders who like to defend, but with Dom there too we like that type of formation where we can get the ball to them earlier.”

“That’s the theory. Training isn’t always that easy because they put you under pressure and I thought we got a little stuck at times in our build-up play today, especially in the second half, but we just kept trying to hit those areas We had to do it.”

This result is all the more remarkable given that Tottenham were without their two regular central defenders, Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero, due to injuries. Ben Davies, normally a full-back, made his first league start this season and was joined in central defense by Radu Dragusin.

Romania international Dragusin had a terrible night against Victor Osimhen in the loss to Galatasaray last month, while Ipswich striker Liam Delap also caused him problems. Last night he was caught off guard several times by Savinho’s tricks, but he constantly put Erling Haaland under pressure and hit a clever long ball that led straight to Maddison opening the scoring. The 22-year-old has looked shaky in possession since joining Spurs from Genoa for £25 million ($31.4 million) in January. This was only his eighth start in the top flight and Postecoglou is clearly confident he will improve.

Dragusin and goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario celebrate after full time (Naomi Baker/Getty Images)

“You have to be (great) against City because obviously they have a big Erling up there, but the way they deliver the ball, the areas they probe consistently, you have to be focused the whole time and I thought , Ben and Radu were really focused,” Postecoglou said. “(Goalkeeper Guglielmo) Vicario behind them was also very positive with his positioning and the way they communicated. I thought Biss (midfielder Yves Bissouma, although he was booked just 18 seconds into the game) was important for this.

“The key for us was that we had to do it as a collective. When you play against City you can’t rely on individuals out there to find solutions and on the whole I think we defended really well but I have to thank these two guys, and not just defensively, we had to act from behind. This was the only way we could get the balls into the areas we wanted, and Ben and Radu didn’t shy away from that. It wasn’t always easy, but they always looked for the ball and tried to play us out from the back.”

Tottenham failed to beat any of the other members of the Big Six away from home last season. In comparison, in this game they took six points from their two trips to Manchester, scored seven goals and kept two clean sheets.

While beating United at Old Trafford at the end of September was impressive, last night’s performance is on a completely different level. This is the biggest defeat in Pep Guardiola’s coaching career. The last time he lost 4-0 at home was in April 2014, when Real Madrid beat Bayern Munich in the second leg of a Champions League semi-final.

It’s baffling how the Spurs seem to swing from one extreme to the other, but they should enjoy this moment. They just need to make sure there isn’t another false start like others this season.

(Top photo: MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)