Match report: Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Man City
Nathan Ake scored a late winner to give Manchester City their first win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after five consecutive defeats since 2019. David Hytner reports …
Ange Postecoglu speaks ...
“No, I don’t know about that,” says the Spurs boss upon being asked if that result was tough on his team. “They’re a great team, we had to work awfully hard to stay in the game and when you concede so late I guesws it is a bit of a gut-punch but ultimately I think they were the better side.”
On the contentious goal: “I’m sure everyoone had a good look at it and the referee didn’t see anything wrong and VAR didn’t see anything wrong. I think the decision was made and we have to accept it.”
An email: “Dias jumped backward into Vicario making no attempt at the ball,” writes Evan Crocker. “He knew exactly what he was doing. But it’s endlessly taboo to speak openly about how much dirty tricks and ‘tactical’ fouls are a core part of Pep’s game.”
They may well be, a core part of his game, Evan, but I can’t help but suspect you would have no complaints whatsoever if Stefan Ortega hgad shown a similarly weak command of his six-yard box at the other end of the pitch and Spurs had scored in identical circumstances.
Nathan Ake: “I’m so happy, so happy, it was tough,” says City’s goalscorer in an interview with the BBC. “We played really well over the whole game and we just had to score but it just didn’t happen again for a long time. I was thinking ‘Is it going to happen?’ but luckily we got it near the end.”
On Tottenham’s protestations over the goal: “I’m not sure what happened to be fair,” he says. “I would have to see it back. I just saw the ball in front of me and I touched it in so I didn’t see what happened.”
Full time: Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Manchester City
Peep! Peep! Peeeeeeeeeeep! It’s all over at the tyyottenham Hotspur Stadium, where Manchester City have finally ended their hoodoo by scoring and winning at the sixth time of asking. Their winner was late and contentious but they won’t care – they advance to the next round, putting an end to any chance Tottenham have of ending their long trophy drought this season.
90+5 min: Jeremy Doku is booked, either for time-wasting or dissent. City have a corner and seem understandably hell bent on keeping the ball down by the flag as they try to see the game out. Referee Paul Tierney puts his wihstle to his lips and draws proceedings to a close. The holders, Manchester City, are through to the last 16 of the FA Cup.
90+3 min: Under pressure from Dias, Vicario flapped at Kevin De Bruyne’s inswinging corner. Unable to clear or hold on to the ball, he could only look on in horror as it broke in the direction of Nathan Ake, who was quickest to react and poked home from no distance out. It will be interesting to see if Ange Postecoglou takes that decision on the chin or complains about it after the match. My two cents: the decision to allow the goal was the correct one.
The goal stands and City lead!
90+1 min: Manchester City have finally scored at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Vicario is booked for dissent, the referee not taking kindly to his protests in the wake of Ake’s goal.
GOAL! Tottenham 0-1 Manchester City (Ake 88)
They’ve scored now! Or have they? There’ll be a VAR check after Ake prods home from close range at a corner after Ruben Dias and Vicario had contested the inswinging ball. Spurs are claiming that Dias fouled Vicario because the two players jumped in the same postal district.
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87 min: Fun fact: Manchester City have now had 100 shots on goal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and failed to score.
86 min: Phil Foden plays the ball in behind for Doku to chase but there’s a mite too much weight on the pass and it takes the substitute wide. His low shot is saved comfortably by Vicario.
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84 min: Josko Gvardiol is booked for a foul on Richarlison.
82 min: Another mistake from Hojbjerg, who gifts possession to Foden on the right side of the Spurs penalty area. He rolls the ball into the path of Kevin De Bruyne, who has all the time of the world and the whole of the goal to aim at.
He fires narrowly wide of the left upright when you’d have bet the farm on a player of his quality to score. On the touchline, Pep goes into full Basil Fawlty mode.
81 min: Hojbjerg swings at a pull-back into his own penalty area and completely misses the ball. It rolls to Bernardo Silva, who doesn’t gewt enough power behind his low shot. Vicario saves comfortably.
80 min: Nothing comes of the set-piece and the game enters its final 10 minutes, plus add-ons. There’ll be a replay at the Etihad Stadium if nobody scores before the final whistle.
79 min: Cristian Romero hooks the ball away from Kevin De Bruyne down by the touchline, conceding a corner and immediately seizing up with cramp. He’ll live.
77 min: Oliver Skipp beats Kyle Walker down the right and sends in an early cross. There’s nobody in a Spurs shirt on hand to get on the end of his low delivery.
74 min: Pep Guardiola is booked for – I think – sarcastically applauding the referee, who had penalised Kevin De Bruyne for what looked like a fair shoulder charge on Micky van de Ven as the two players contested a ball towards the byline.
73 min: Spurs double-substitution: James Maddison and Oliver Skipp replace Brennan Johnson and Rodrigo Bentancur.
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72 min: With Spurs on the attack again, yet another run by Werner in behind Kyle Walker goes unnoticed or ignored by his teammates. They need to get it to him, ideally as quickly as possible. Here comes a man who has almost certainly noticed those runs from his position on the bench …
70 min: Doku and De Bruyne link up down the inside left after good work by Kovacic. Sliding to keep the ball from going wide, De Bruyne slices his cross high and wide.
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66 min: A deflected Phil Foden cross towards Kevin De Bruyne almost catches out Vicario, threatening to loop over his head. Wide.
66 min: Man City double-substitution: Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne on for Oscar Bobb and Julian Alvarez.
64 min: Rodri is penalised for a foul on Romero and Spurs have another free-kick, about 40 yards from the City goal. Nothing comes of it.
62 min: Tottenham free-kick, wide on the left. With City’s players lined up across the face of their own penalty area, Pedro Porro whips the ball towards towards them and Kovacic volleys clear. It was a poor delivery from Porro.
61 min: Brennan Johnson whips a low cross into the City penalty area, which somehow evades both Rodrigo Bentancur and Timo Werner. The delivery was behind one and a little too far in front of the other and a great chance goes to waste.
59 min: Bernardo Silva is hacked down by Destiny Odogie, who gets his name taken for his foul just inside the Tottenham half. He foillows Mateo Kovacic into the referee’s bad books, the City midfielder having been booked a short time ago for a foul on the Spurs left-back.
56 min: City are playing a high line and Timo Werner has made repeated runs down the channel in behind Kyle Walker, but none of his teammates appear to have noticed his willingness or availability. It must be very frustrating for the new Spurs loan signing.
54 min: Tottenham appeal for a penalty after a Kulusevski cross hits the shoulder/armpit of Ruben Dias. Quite correctly, referee Paul Tierney is having none of it.
53 min: Stefan Ortega dashes off his line to prevent Brennan Johnson lifting the ball over him with a neat flick after Timo Werner had played it into his teammate’s path.
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52 min: The second half begins much like the first, with Tottenham seriously under the cosh.
51 min: Manchester City corner. Julian Alvarez’s delivery to the near post is poor and Rodrigo Bentancur heads clear for another corner. This one is also arrowed towards the near post, where Pedro Porro heads upfield.
48 min: With the goal at his mercy as he takes down a cross from the left from Oscar Bobb, Julian Alvarez shoots and looks certain to score. Micky van de Ven gets back, stretches out a leg and somehow gets enough on the ball to deflect it high and wide. It looked like a dreadful miss by Alvarez but was actually excellent defending by the flying Dutchman.
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47 min: Vicario lofts a seven-iron for Romero to chase towards the right touchline and the Spurs skipper has to bust a gut to keep the ball in play and move it upfield.
Second half: Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Manchester City
46 min: Play resumes with no changes in personnel on either side.
0 - Tottenham have failed to record a single shot in the first half of a home match for the first time in any competition since February 2020, also against Manchester City, in the Premier League - a game they went on to win 2-0. Optimism.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 26, 2024
Half-time: Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Manchester City
Referee Paul Tierney draws the first half to a close and the players of both sides walk off with the deadlock intact. Oscar Bobb had a goal disallowed for City, who doominated the possession stats but posed Guglielmo Vicario few problems.
At the other end of the pitch, City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega was little more than a mildly intrigued bystander as Spurs struggled to find the killer pass after getting in behind City’s full-backs.
45+5 min: City continue to press and probe around the fringes of the Spurs penalty area to little effect. It’s half-time.
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45+2 min: We’ll have six minutes of added time, most of them down to the break in play prompted by the malfunction of one of the match officials’ communications device. This match has been played at a breakneck speed, but Manchester City’s disallowed goal aside, there have been precious little in the way of goalscoring chances for either side.
45+1 min: Oscar Bobb runs on to a free-kick into space from deep and pulls the ball back towards Foden from the byline. Manchester’s No47 connects with it on the volley but is unable to strike with any conviction. Vicario collects.
44 min: Pedro Porro advances upfield, drifts inside from the right and tries to pick out a Richarlison run. Ruben Dias intercepts his pass and a promising attack breaks down.
40 min: Hojbjerg threads an excellent pass down the inside left between defenders for Werner to chase. The German’s first-time cross to Richarlison is intercepted and City break upfield at lightning speed. Porro gets back to make a crucial block and City have a corner. From that they win another and Ake’s near post flick is hoofed clear for a City throw-in.
38 min: Timo Werner gets a rare touch of the ball out by the left touchline, immediately playing it back inside to Rodrigo Bentancur. The ball finds its way back to Werner, who proceeds to overhit a crossfield pass to Pedro Porro.
36 min: Play finally resumes with a Tottenham free-kick halfway inside their own half. The ball is played back to Vicario, who quickly moves it upfield again.
35 min: Play has yet to resume. Try turning it off and turning it on again, lino.
32 min: There’s a pause in proceedings as one of referee Paul Tierney’s assistants gets some IT assistance from a young woman who is doing some running repairs on the power pack of his comms unit.
30 min: With half an hour gone, City have dominated proceedings and had an early goal disallowed but the deadlock remains unbroken for now.
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28 min: A long punt upfield from Vicario bounces high on the edge of the final third. Facing his own goal and under extreme pressure from Dejan Kulusevski, Ruben Dias heads the ball safely into the gloves of his own goalkeeper.
26 min: Following an eye-catching Phil Foden piroutte that sends Cristian Romero skittering towards the car-park, the ball is played wide to Josko Gvardiol. I’m not sure whether he was shooting or crossing from a tight angle but whatever his intention, his effort was found sorely wanting. High and wide.
24 min: Brennan Johnson is released down the right and drills a low cross towards Richarlison, loitering with intent at the far post. Stefan Ortega is quick off his line to get down and intercept the delivery. I suspect that if Spurs had scored, the goal would have been ruled out for a Johnson offside.
22 min: Cristian Romero gives the ball away while trying to thread a low pass between a couple of defenders and City break upfield. Micky van de Ven shows an impressive turn of foot to get back and avert the danger.
20 min: Brennan Johnson is played in behind Gvardiol by a fine pass from Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. The Spurs winger hesitates before crossing and his delivery is deflected out for a corner. Nothing comes of it.
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18 min: Ruben Dias is penalised for a foul on Richarlison just inside the Spurs half.
17 min: After a relentless flurry of short passes in and around the left side of the Spurs penalty area, City get the ball wide to Josko Gvardiol. His low, first-time cross is wayward and Vicario tidies up at the back for the hosts.
14 min: Spurs get the ball out of their own half and Brennan Johnson wins them a corner. Bentancur gets a flick on the delivery to the near post and City clear their lines. Some much-needed respite for Spurs, if nothing else.
13 min: City corner. Vicario punches the inswinger clear. Moments later, Julian Alvarez tries a shot from distance and the Spurs goalkeeper dives to his right to save comfortably.
12 min: It’s all City in these early stages. They’re pinging the ball around for fun, finding little pockets of space. Tottenham are struggling to get more than a few seconds of sustained possession at a time.
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11 min: Good build-up play leads to Bernardo Silva having a low shot from just inside the penalty area blocked after Tottenham Hotspur had given the ball away cheaply.
9 min: Kyle Walker tries to hook a cross from the left back across the face of goal but is stretching every sinew and can only put the ball wide.
8 min: City’s quest to score a goal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium goes on, as they have an early opener chalked off by the curtain-twitchers based in Stockley Park.
City have a goal disallowed!
5 min: A slip from Destiny Odogie allows Kyle Walker to drill a low cross into the Spurs penalty area from the right. Phil Foden shoots from seven or eight yards out, Vicario saves brilliantly and Oscar Bobb scores on the follow-up. It’s offside, but only by a whisker. There’ll be a VAR check.
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3 min: Nathan Ake gets his passing stats up, repeatedly receiving the ball just inside his own half before moving it on again with a series of short deliveries to teammates positioned to his left and right.
2 min: It’s a quite frenetic start and Guiglielmo Vicario tries to slow things down after receiving a back pass. He stands over the ball, taking his time before booting the ball upfield.
Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City is go ...
1 min: Manchester City get the ball rolling, with Oscar Bobb doing the honours. Their players wear navy kit with red numbers, while their hosts are a vision in all white.
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Not long now: Led by referee Paul Tierney and his team of match officials, the players of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City make their way out on to the pitch ahead of what could be a belting FA Cup tie. Cristian Romero and Kyle Walker skipper the sides and kick-off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is just a few minutes away.
Fun fact: While Manchester City are heavy odds-on favourites to win tonight’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it is worth noting that they have lost all five matches they have played at the ground since it opened for business in April 2019 and have yet to score a goal there.
After steering City to the treble last season, Pep Guardiola was asked what was left for him to achieve in the game. His reply? “Score a goal against Spurs away.”
Pep Guardiola: ““That’s the reality, how tough it for us,” said the Manchester City manager upon being asked about his side’s surprisingly atrocious record at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. “In the knockout stage to go through you have to score goals otherwise it’s impossible. This is an opportunity to break it.
“The feeling is most of the times we were, exceptional is not the right word because we could not win but we played really good. The way we behaved and the way we played was good. The reality is that with no goals and [those] defeats, they are much better than us.”
Ange Postecoglou: ““You can’t script it, so it’s probably going to end up being 0-0 and fairly dull,” said the Spurs manager, when asked if he was looking forward to tonight’s game. “But I do relish these occasions. I loved the 3-3 at their place, it was a cracking game. There were so many storylines within the game, I loved that.
“That’s what I love about football and that’s what you want. Obviously you want to win because that makes you feel better about what’s happened but you’re playing arguably the best side in the world and we feel like we can have a crack at them. We will, and we’ll see what the outcome is.”
Those teams: Tottenham Hotspur make just one change from the team that drew at Old Trafford last time out, with Dejan Kulusevski coming in for Oliver Skipp. James Maddison starts on the bench.
There’s a start for Oscar Bobb following his late heroics against Newcastle, but Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne is among the substitutes for the third match in a row since his return from injury. He’ll be joined on the bench by John Stones, who has also been passed fit.
Tonight’s match officials
Referee: Paul Tierney
Assistant referees: Adrian Holmes and Scott Ledger
Fourth official: Darren England
VAR: Tim Robinson
Tottenham Hotspur v Man City line-ups
Tottenham Hotspur: Vicario; Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Udogie; Hojbjerg, Bentancur; Johnson, Kulusevski, Werner; Richarlison
Substitutes: Forster, Royal, Davies, Dragusin, Skipp, Maddison, Byran, Santiago, Scarlett
Manchester City: Ortega Moreno, Walker, Dias, Ake, Gvardiol, Rodrigo, Kovacic, Bernardo, Foden, Bobb, Alvarez
Subs: Ederson, Stones, Grealish, Doku, De Bruyne, Gomez, Nunes, Susoho, Lewis.
Early team news ...
Tottenham Hotspur fans are anticipating the return of James Maddison after a 10-week lay-off with an ankle injury, while Ben Davies has also returned to full training, having been sidelined with a thigh problem since his side’s third round win over Burnley.
In other good news for Ange Postecoglou, Dejan Kulusevski has recovered from the illness which precluded his participation in Tottenham’s recent draw with Manchester United, but Manor Solomon, Ryan Sessegnon and Gio Lo Celso are all out.
Pape Sarr and Yves Bissouma are also both absent, away on Africa Cup of Nations duty with Mali and Senegal respectively. Meanwhile at the Asian Cup, Son Heung-min is banging them in for his native South Korea and will also miss tonight’s game.
Ederson has recovered from the injury that forced him off the pitch in the early stages of Manchester City’s recent win against Newcastle but may sit this one out anyway, so Stefan Ortega can get another run-out in goal. Manuel Akanji and Erling Haaland are both out injured, but John Stones has been passed fit by the physios after missing the Newcastle game with an ankle injury.
FA Cup fourth round: Tottenham v Man City
The 1987 FA Cup final might be best remembered for Keith Houchen’s diving header, but it was in fact Tottenham captain Gary Mabbutt’s own goal that ensured underdogs Coventry City madde off with the trophy courtesy of the odd goal in a five-goal thriller that went to extra time.
A bona fide Spurs legend, Mabbutt looked understandably disconsolate at the time, much like he would almost 37 years later when, upon being invited to conduct this season’s fourth round draw, he paired his beloved club with last season’s treble winners Manchester City.
A global club ambassador for Spurs these days, Gary will almost certainly be present at White Hart Lane tonight for what is arguably the tie of the round. He will be hoping that, unlike in May 1987, his side will be able to overcome the daunting disadvatage he has accidentally put them at.
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