The good news is Spurs will
not play Manchester City again this season. The bad news is an aggregate score
of 11-1 against City means that for the first time in over half a century, a
league opponent has put more than ten goals past us in a season. That’s a record
Tim Sherwood will not be proud of as his unbeaten start came to a crashing halt.
More damagingly, the harm done to our goal difference
by City is almost our exact deficit to Everton and Manchester United and means
that Spurs are effectively an extra point down on our rivals for Champions
league qualification. The tin hats didn’t work out so well after all.
Tim Sherwood bravely, heroically,
gamely or stupidly depending on your point of view kept his promise to go toe
to toe with Manchester City. With Moussa Dembele and Nabil Bentaleb up against
the impressive Yaya Toure and Fernandinho. In truth the only way to stop the
City juggernaut if you do not have a better team than them is spoiling tactics:
man marking, packing the bus etc. styles which are anathema to the Spurs DNA
and probably no guarantee of a result against players of the calibre of Sergio
Aguero, Yaya Toure, David Silva and the magnificent Vincent Kompany. Saying that,
Sherwood’s apparent aversion to defensive midfielders will inevitably be the
source of much lively debate in wake of what the Americans would call a ‘shellacking’.
City it has to be said, were
much the better side throughout while Spurs struggled to get a foothold in the
game. By the time Aguero scored yet another sublime goal in the 15th
minute, there was a palpable fear that this could become uncomfortable viewing.
Spurs to their credit, refused to lie down, goalkeeper Hugo Lloris produced one
of the saves of this or any other season to stop a goal bound header from the irrepressible
Aguero and roared on by a belligerent home crowd that dared to believe, gamely
scrapped their way back into the match. Michael Dawson was unlucky to have his
equalising goal ruled out as Adebayor was marginally offside and at half time, with
two City players on yellow cards, Spurs were definitely still in the contest
despite City’s undoubted superiority.
An uphill task was however
made even harder after a contentious and ultimately incorrect decision was made
for the referee by the assistant official to award a penalty to City and a red card
to Danny Rose after what was undeniably a desperate and risky tackle. Replays
however showed that Rose marginally got the ball before catching City striker Edin
Dzeko. More than the penalty, which Toure converted with the minimum of fuss,
the red card meant Spurs had a mountain to climb. The game then got further
away from Spurs as City scored a third. Spurs battled gamely on and substitute Etienne
Capoue, ironically a defensive midfielder then scored for Spurs to spark hopes
of an improbable recovery. City were however too good, kept attacking with
intent and gradually the advantage of the extra man told as they scored two
late goals to give the score line a humiliating look that does not reflect the
efforts of the Spurs players.
To revisit his selection and
tactics, the issue for me was less about defensive midfielders as most midfielders
on Spurs’ books are good box to box players, capable of staying back. It is
more about organising the positional play when not in possession. Despite effectively
having five midfielders (which in itself reflects some tactical variety on
Sherwood’s path), there appeared to be no plan for defensive, organised,
collective pressing when City had possession. This meant that Bentaleb and
Dembele found themselves constantly bypassed when City were attacking which was
far too often for comfort. This is area Sherwood and his coaches must work on
as they recover from this setback. The selection of Gylfi Sigurdsson was also
flawed. Apart from one good game against Norwich earlier in the season, he has
not really stamped any authority on Spurs attacking play. Perhaps Lewis Holtby (probably
Spurs answer to James Milner), who despite reservations about his value to the
squad often produces energetic performances could have done a better job while
also offering defensive discipline. Maybe even Nacer Chadli (who despite having
a build like Cristiano Ronaldo often plays infuriatingly like Jose Dominguez)
might just have given the suspect Martin Demechelis a more testing afternoon. No
doubt in future games, the likes of Andros Townsend and Erik Lamela would have an
important role to play these types of formations.
Manchester city had better
win the league now. If there is any consolation in being trashed so
comprehensively, it is losing to record breaking Champions. It was a sign of
the crazy times that City’s bitter rivals, Manchester United had gone from
hoping Spurs beat City to help their quest for the premiership to hoping City
beat Spurs to help their quest for Champions league qualification. Arsenal
would not have minded a draw or a win for Spurs as it keeps the league alive. Even
old Machiavelli himself, Jose Mourinho got in on the act, mischievously
suggesting he would prefer a City win to reduce the number of teams fighting
for the title. Be careful what you wish for Jose. Messrs Mourinho, Wenger, and
Moyes, How do you solve a problem like Manchester City? Your problem, not ours
anymore. We haven’t been much good at solving it.
No comments:
Post a Comment