Erling Holand’s double allowed Manchester City to win 0-2 away at Tottenham and take a big step towards a fourth consecutive Premier League title.
Regarding the 2-1 victory over Burnley, there were three changes in the starting line-up of Spurs. Radu Dragushin, Pierre-Emile Heybjerg and Rodrigo Bentancourt appeared instead of Yves Bissum, Oliver Skipp and Dejan Kulusevski.
Kyle Walker returned to the start of the “citizens”, replacing Nathan Ake.
The first word in the match was said by the hosts. In the sixth minute, Bentancourt struck a powerful shot from the edge of the penalty area, but Ederson did not let the ball under the crossbar of his goal.
In response, the visitors made several approaches to Guglielmo Vicario’s goal, and in the 16th minute for the first time seriously strained the Tottenham goalkeeper, who parried Phil Foden’s shot from close range after Heybjerg could not take the ball out of his penalty area.
In the future, City tried to play as safely as possible, minimizing the risk. Tottenham looked more relaxed up front.
The end of the first half was marked by a double moment of the “citizens”, but the shots of Erling Holand and Bernardo Silva from killer positions were blocked by Mickey Van de Ven and Dragushin, respectively.
And at the beginning of the second half, the score was opened. Opening on the right edge of the penalty area and receiving a pass from Silva, De Bruyne shot towards the goal, and De Bruyne hit the target from a meter — 0:1.
Soon the visitors suffered a significant loss, because Ederson suffered a head injury in a collision with Van de Ven and was forced to give up his place on the field to Stefan Ortega.
As soon as he appeared as a substitute, Ortega made a big save, stopping Kulusevski’s shot from an acute angle.
City tried to play carefully, but in the 86th minute they failed in defense, and Song Hyun-min went one-on-one. Fortunately for the “townspeople”, Ortega blocked the Tottenham captain’s kick with his foot.
And when there was a minute left before the end of regular time, substitute Jeremy Doku ran into a foul in the Spurs penalty area, and Holand flawlessly executed the penalty — 0:2.
City did not play this match in the most convincing way, and a couple of times the citizens were frankly lucky, but a victory is a victory. Tottenham did everything they could, failing to avoid a fifth defeat in their last six matches.
Tottenham vs Manchester City. Match Report