After the surge and the hope came a brick wall and a realisation. If this is to be the season when Pep Guardiola and Manchester City snap out of their slumber, then what a chastening way to realise how much more work is needed.
Where to begin with this debacle of a 2-0 defeat? How to quantify or explain an afternoon that simultaneously revealed a poor defence, an uncomfortable goalkeeper and a Tottenham side that was quite exceptional in exploiting all of the above?
Perhaps that duty should fall on the travelling Spurs fans, who covered a couple of bases with their chant towards the end: ‘It’s happening again, it’s happening again, Manchester City, it’s happening again.’
Now what could that be exactly? Is it the head-to-head record that shows how Tottenham, for all their flakiness, have made a curious habit of beating City in the past five years?
Or was it about the bigger picture, aimed at the continuation of City’s misery from the previous campaign?
Naturally, it is too early to be definitive about what this result means. But what we can say is that, having opened so well against Wolves, City still have an awful lot to fix and, by contrast, Thomas Frank appears to have made enormous progress in a short time.
Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester City 2-0 at the Etihad Stadium in Saturday’s lunchtime kick-off
Brennan Johnson opened the scoring for the away side after a VAR check in the first half
From any angle, this was an extremely impressive win, achieved as much for what Tottenham did off the ball as they managed with it. Led by the excellent Joao Palhinha, they pressed City into the grass of their own backyard and met the remnants of City’s fading aura with savage irreverence.
The physical execution of a relentless assault was impressive, but Frank’s choreography was close to perfect. To bed that in so soon after arrival, is some feat. As an illustration, look at Tijjani Reijnders, who was so brilliantly composed in tight spaces against Wolves, but rendered far less effective by the big squeezes applied by a combination of Palhinha, Richarlison and Pape Matar Sarr.
As a foundation, that helped Tottenham secure back-to-back clean sheets for the first time in 22 months. As for the winning, that was traced in part to how effectively Spurs defended from the front, attacked on the counter, and capitalised on a couple of glaring frailties within City.
Primarily we are talking about the City backline, which has always been stationed high on the field but has been revved to dangerous altitudes by Guardiola’s new assistant Pep Lijnders. Frank later disclosed such opportunities had been identified within their pre-match planning, telling us: ‘We spoke about their high line. It is one thing to talk about it but it isn’t easy.’
And yet they made it look simple in the opening goal, scored by Brennan Johnson. Their rampaging counter up the right flank, inspired mainly by Richarlison and Sarr, was testament to how quickly Frank’s version of Spurs change gear, but it was also about the acreage found behind Guardiola’s centre-halves.
They were asking for trouble and not even an offside flag could save them – the VAR correctly spotted John Stones was late in deploying the trap on Johnson and from there no one was catching Richarlison prior to his cross.
That goal was more about Tottenham’s quality; the second was down to the calamity which encompassed James Trafford. The biggest selection decision of the day concerned Ederson’s place on the bench, which would signify his time at City is nearly up, but into his spot went a talented goalkeeper who had a horrible day with his feet.
He had survived one mishap early in the match and then endured a shocker for the second goal, when a needlessly convoluted goal-kick routine saw him fluff a short ball to Nico Gonzalez on the edge of his area. It was a bad error that allowed Sarr to intercept and set in train Palhinha’s goal.
New recruit Joao Palhinha doubled Spurs’ lead before the break
He pounced on a poor piece of goalkeeping from City’s new signing James Trafford
The Cityzens’ aura appears to be gone; Pep Guardiola was outdone by Thomas Frank
A far cry from last season, Spurs are yet to concede a goal in their opening two fixtures of this season
Man City talisman Rodri made his first Premier League appearance since his long-term injury but couldn’t help his side get back in the game
It’s back to the drawing board for Pep Guardiola after what seemed such a promising start to the season last week
For Guardiola, the goalkeeper dilemma will rumble. But other decisions also aged badly – firstly, that meant two changes to the side that won on the opening weekend and neither Rayan Cherki nor Omar Marmoush lasted more than 54 minutes before being hooked. Rayan Aït-Nouri had been substituted even earlier due to injury on his home debut.
Not a good day at all, really, and made worse by Guardiola knowing his side had decent chances, especially in the first half. Marmoush missed a pair of them and Erling Haaland also botched a free header.
After the break, their ability to cut through grew even less, which is a measure of how well Palhinha controlled the space. As much as we can criticise Daniel Levy’s work in the transfer market, and indeed have done in a week when the move for Eberechi Eze fell through, the acquisition of Palhinha from Bayern Munich is looking ever more shrewd.
Even prior to his goal, he was a menace, both for the precision of his tackling and then the quick balls into those massive gaps behind. Naturally, the worry for Tottenham is that Levy might take the sight of two good wins as a reason to think the squad is fine, but Frank does want reinforcements.
He said: ‘We are looking to add in, and hopefully succeed. I know the club is working very hard. I trust them.’
In terms of the result, he added he was ‘very delighted’, and of course he was. More unexpectedly, Guardiola was also satisfied, saying: ‘I had a feeling it was a little bit better than the result. The result is not good. It is a long, long way and we will learn from that.’
