Right then, I’ll be off. Here’s the match report again. Bye!
Japhet Tanganga doesn’t seem to be getting carried away. “I had my tactics,” he says of his personal duel with Raheem Sterling. “I knew coming into this game I’d had six weeks of preparation and he maybe had less.”
Who wants to hear from Japh? 👇
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) August 15, 2021
Yeah, us too! 😍 pic.twitter.com/oA7U4PQZPU
Raheem Sterling talks after City lost their first game of the season for the first time in 10 years:
I thought we could control the game a little bit better. We let them counter-attack too much, they did exactly what they wanted to do. It’s a difficult one to take, but it’s a long season. I thought we were on the front foot, [but] they kept getting small counters and we should control them a bit better. But we’ll bounce back from this one. It’s always difficult to start with a defeat, but it’s a long road but we’ve got to keep focused and try to bounce back from this. I’ve played with [Grealish] a few times and it’s a good one. It’s still early days with me and him and we’ll learn each other’s games a lot more as the season goes on.
Sometimes football can be reassuringly familiar. This was Manchester City with the flaws on the outside; this is what they look like when things go wrong, as they have twice before against Nuno Espírito Santo sides, and weirdly often against Spurs. Football’s finances may be ruined and the game sinking into a moral mire, but there is still comfort to be drawn from teams, despite it all, remaining resolutely themselves.
City began with great pace and urgency, slicing Spurs open so frequently the game might have been over within 10 minutes. But then having failed to score, the mechanisms became gummed and, more troublingly, they looked extremely vulnerable on the counter-attack, with Lucas Moura a constant menace. Of course City were the more proactive side, despite being without numerous first-teamers – clubs with the essentially unlimited resources of a state should be – and of course they will win most games, but this is how they lose them, with a slight wastefulness in front of goal and a carelessness against the counter.
Much more here:
Nuno Espirito Santo praises the hard work of his players:
It was good. It would make any manager proud when they work so hard. They were strong [at the start] and I think we were lucky, because they had real chances, but the boys held on. We knew it was going to be tough, and after the first 15 minutes I think we controlled better. Not only Tanganga, in terms of shape, in terms of organisation, the front three worked very hard. It’s very difficult to play against City, it requires a lot of discipline, but the boys were great. I’m sure that with commitment and with the talent that we have, we’re going to be a good team. I’m learning every day, and I’m very proud of them today.
And on Harry Kane:
Look, Harry is one of the best players in the world. Honestly. We are very lucky to have him. So he has to get ready and help the team.
Son Heung-Min has a chat:
Obviously we want to start well. With the fans finally, just an incredible performance. Everyone worked so hard to get these three points. Man City currently are the best team in the world. I think this means a lot for us for the start of the season. We did just a great job. We know Man City are a really good team. We prepared really well, we worked hard in preseason and we showed on the pitch. We did a great job, we did amazingly.
And on Harry Kane:
We are all professional. We wanted to focus on this game. It doesn’t matter who’s involved and who’s not. Obviously Harry’s so, so important for us.
That was an excellent game played at a wild pace and full of excellent performances. Tanganga is Gary Neville’s man of the match, but Lucas Moura was superb and the pace of Tottenham’s front three, and the ability of each of them to run with the ball, was integral. City started beautifully but couldn’t sustain it and lacked an attacking focus. I think Cancelo was their most convincing attacking force, which given some of the other players on the pitch was unexpected.
Final score: Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Manchester City
90+6 mins: It’s all over, and the champions’ title defence is off to a miserable start!
90+5 mins: Gundogan is on the ground and clutching his left shoulder. He’s not actually on the pitch, but the game has been delayed until he receives treatment.
90+4 mins: Spurs try to waste time by the corner flag. City win it back, and two noteworthy tackles follow. One, from Dele Alli on Jesus, is appalling and gets nowhere near either ball or player. The next, from Sanchez on De Bruyne, is magnificent.
90+3 mins: Zinchenko tries a cross from only just inside Tottenham’s half, which Lloris claims easily. More roars from the crowd.
90+3 mins: Lo Celso tries to dribble into the penalty area, but just as it looks like he might conjure himself a chance Fernandinho pops up to deal with the situation.
90+1 mins: There will be about four minutes of stoppage time. They start with Grealish getting annoyed with Lucas Moura for going down a little easily (the irony!) and Sanchez getting annoyed with Grealish for getting annoyed with Lucas Moura. Both annoyed footballers are booked.
Updated
90 mins: Cristian Romero comes on for Hojbjerg.
89 mins: Hojbjerg has gone down, and is suffering from a severe case of unspecified malaise.
89 mins: Another City corner comes to nothing, and when they toss the ball back into the area Lloris comes and claims, to massive acclaim from the home support.
87 mins: City work the ball to Torres, now on the right, but his low cross is too close to Lloris.
85 mins: That corner makes the one that ended with a Cancelo 18-yard header look good.
84 mins: Save! De Bruyne hits a 20-yard curler that looks very nice but is punched away by Lloris. Still, City have a corner.
83 mins: Spurs bring Matt Toherty on for Tanganga, who has been excellent on what looked, in those first few minutes, to be the flank down which City would rip Spurs apart.
81 mins: City win a corner, and try something off the training ground. This appears to be setting up Cancelo to attempt to score with a header from 18 yards, which suggests they need a bit more time on the training ground. “Last season City took it easy for the first six games to create a sense of false hope for the title pretenders, then turned on the afterburners and won the league by 12 points,” notes Richard Harris. “Even if they lose today it will only make Gunners fans happy that the Invincibles’ record is safe for another season.”
79 mins: Spurs ping the ball to Son, who controls excellently and has another shot deflected wide.
79 mins: A double change for City, who bring Zinchenko and De Bruyne on for Mendy and Mahrez, and also tell Jesus to get in the middle.
78 mins: Lucas Moura looks as fit as the butcher’s proverbial dog. He’s sent scampering down the right again, and wins his side a free kick.
77 mins: Spurs bring Lo Celso on for Bergwijn, who gets a nice ovation for his efforts. The downside of basically only attacking on the break is that Tottenham’s front three have had to do a lot of sprinting.
75 mins: Save! Jesus plays to Grealish, running into the left side of the area, but his left-foot shot is straight at Lloris, who saves.
Updated
74 mins: Spurs win a free kick on the right, but when it’s sent into the mixer Davinson Sanchez blocks Lucas Moura’s shot.
71 mins: City have brought on a striker, with Jesus coming on. But he’s replaced Sterling, and has taken his place on the left.
70 mins: How has this not gone in? Alli fouls Mahrez and after along delay while everyone gets set City work it perfectly, passing right to Cancelo who sends a brilliant cross into the six-yard box where Torres gets a foot to it and somehow diverts it wide.
Updated
66 mins: Handbags! Lucas Moura seems to have tackled Grealish cleanly and is miffed when the refereee blows his whistle. So he doesn’t immediately give the ball to anyone in blue, leading to much fractious jostling. The Brazilian is booked.
65 mins: I’m not entirely sure that it was in Tottenham’s interests to use this game to demonstrate City’s desperate need for a striker.
63 mins: Every time City lose the ball Spurs are threatening to rip their defence apart. This time Lucas Moura is a little over-ambitious with his final pass, and Ederson claims.
60 mins: Bergwijn misses a brilliant chance for a second! Spurs have been breaking excellently, and this time Lucas Moura roars down the middle and his pass left to Bergwijn deflects off a diving defender even more perfectly for Bergwijn, who has nobody but Ederson ahead of him, runs into the area and clips a shot well wide!
59 mins: Mahrez crosses from the right and Sterling jumps for it, goes down and looks pleadingly at the referee, who isn’t interested and rightly so.
57 mins: Replays suggest that Ederson might have saved Son’s shot if he had only tried to, rather than just standing still and watching it whistle past him. Also that Dias might have got in its way, but he wasn’t sure whether to go with foot or head and ended just thrusting out a knee, which was definitely the wrong choice of body part.
GOAL! Tottenham 1-0 Manchester City (Son, 55 mins)
Spurs have their first shot on target, and it only goes into the net! It is an absolute cracker from Son Heung-Min, who runs down the right, cuts inside Ake and hits a low left-footer from the edge of the area that curls just inside the far post!
Updated
53 mins: A wild 45 seconds or so for Spurs, who hit a cross from the right that nearly drops to a player in white but doesn’t, then hit a cross from the left that nearly drops to a player in white but doesn’t, then a cross from the right that would have dropped to a player in white (Alli) had another one (Lucas Moura) not headed it away from him.
A shot on target!
49 mins: It’s been coming, and now it’s arrived! Sterling cuts in from the left and scuffs a rubbish, bobbly shot straight into the arms of Lloris.
48 mins: A nice City move ends with Gundogan, who turns and shoots straight into a defender’s leg. Spurs counter, and from 25 yards Moura drags a shot well wide.
47 mins: Spurs have the first chance of the new half after Alli dispossessed Fernandinho runs towards the penalty area and then passes to Hojbjerg, whose low shot across goal is bad enough that Son might have turned it in had Dias not cleared it first.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! Ferran Torres starts half two for Manchester City.
There have been no shots on target.
It’s been an interesting game, played at the familiar hurly-burly Premier League™ pace, though it can broadly be summarised as one in which one team excelled for 10 minutes, and neither really hit the heights thereafter.
Meanwhile, if my inbox is anything to go by everybody thinks Kane should be sold, if for a variety of reasons. “It makes more and more sense that Kane was left out today,” rages Matthew Richman. “I’m perfectly happy leaving to the imagination the image of half-hearted pressing as his midfield is overrun all while his agent tries to finagle his way out of a contract for more money on a weekly basis than many see in a lifetime. I understand that he has quite the bank of goodwill from Spurs fans, but between this saga and a Euro showing where his best moments were on the way down to the grass I find his image somewhat wanting.”
Half time: Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Manchester City
45+2 mins: One last Eric Dier booted clearance and the teams go in level at the break.
Updated
45 mins: There’ll be one minute of stoppage time, or somesuch.
43 mins: Another shot from Son, again about 20 yards out, but this one dips onto the roof of the net. City were massively superior for about 10 minutes, but now it’s anyone’s game.
40 mins: Close! Moura leads a Spurs break and finds Son, who uses Bergwijn’s decoy run, turns back onto his right foot and hits a shot from 20 yards that flicks off Cancelo ‘s right buttock and bounces just wide. The referee gives a goal kick.
37 mins: The referee is really vehemently opposed to booking Tanganga. Having given him a final warning 10 minutes ago when he fouls Sterling again he calls Lloris, the Spurs captain, over and gives him another final warning only seriously this time he means it.
35 mins: Chance for City! Sterling crosses from the left and it drops to Mahrez for a left-foot half-volley, which he smashes six yards wide.
Updated
32 mins: Son ruins a Spurs break again, refusing to cross from the left this time, coming back onto his right foot, giving City plenty of time to get back in defensive position and then passing to a teammate in a worse position.
30 mins: A penalty appeal as the ball hits Skipp in the chest/arm area, but the referee is unimpressed. “Oliver Skipp is not a footballers name,” insists Stephen Carr. “It sounds more like someone who has a successful blog about craft gin.”
Updated
28 mins: Spurs attack, Lucas Moura running from inside his own half towards the City penalty area, but his prod through to Bergwijn is a bit overstrong, and the move breaks down from there.
Updated
26 mins: An encouraging spell of play for Spurs. City try to break with Sterling and Grealish combining again on the left, but Tanganga takes hold of Sterling and doesn’t let go, conceding a free kick and earning himself a strict talking to from the referee.
24 mins: Blocked on the line! Ederson comes out for a free kick but doesn’t reach it, and the ball loops sideways to Lucas Moura, whose volley looked to be heading in at the near post had Gundogan not got in the way.
22 mins: This one flicks off the head of Dias at the near post and bounces out of the other side of the area.
21 mins: Another corner for the home team, after Mendy loses the ball and a few moments later Bergwijn’s shot is deflected wide.
Updated
19 mins: Now they win a corner, but Ake heads clear.
18 mins: A few better minutes for Spurs, who have kept the ball for a while. They haven’t done much with it, but really they just needed to not be defending for a little while.
15 mins: Grealish gets a bit stuck on the left flank, but Hojbjerg offers him a leg to fall over so he ends up with a free kick.
12 mins: City win a corner, which they take short. Eventually Mendy overhits a cross, Mahrez rescues it near the opposite corner flag and he leaves a Spurs player on hi backside before dribbling to the byline and crossing low into the arms of Lloris.
10 mins: Sky report that Kane is in the stadium, watching his team dominate a lacklustre Spurs side.
8 mins: Mendy is dispossessed and the ball worked to Son, who runs at Ake on the right but refuses to cross towards Lucas Moura and Bergwijn, stops, turns back and plays a 40-yard backwards pass.
7 mins: No goals yet, but this has “4-0 away win, home team booed off at half and full time” written all over it.
6 mins: Another chance! Dier gets a foot to Mahrez’s cross but just prods the ball out to Cancelo, bursting into the area, whose low shot zips just wide!
5 mins: Nearly a goal! Mendy crosses from the left, Lloris comes for it but gets nowhere near, and Fernandinho heads just wide of an empty net.
Updated
4 mins: Skipp intervenes again from the free kick, flicking Gundogan’s shot over the bar with his head.
3 mins: A chaotic opening ends with Grealish bursting into the penalty area and going down. Looks like Skipp gave him a shove, just outside the box.
1 min: Peeeeeep! Spurs get the ball rolling.
And out they come! The players get ready for kick-off, and Mendy has a long chat with Grealish before it happens. And now for football.
The teams have gathered in the, um, foyer area near the lifts.
“Is Hugo Lloris did say that it was better ‘to step back to come back stronger’ he was probably translating from the familiar expression in French,“reculer pour mieux sauter, literally take a step back to jump better,” suggests Charles Antaki. “What he didn’t say, though, is that sauter also means to blow up.”
Pep Guardiola has his pre-match talk with Sky:
Jack is not going to solve our problems. We will involve him in the way we want to play, be part of something, and then help him as much as possible to produce in the game as many times as possible. He has to be himself. He didn’t come for one game or two games, he came for many years. Maybe he adapt quicker, maybe he needs more time. We are going to wait.
The selection today was more thinking of the guys that have been here since the beginning. Two days ago was the first time we were all together. Some guys get condition quicker. They arrived good, but it’s just the first game. There are 38 games. They know everyone is going to be involved.
I wonder how long they had to spend dreaming up this nickname:
A start for Skippy. 👊 pic.twitter.com/S8BkXQqaxz
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) August 15, 2021
# enters nostalgic dream state #
Nuno Espirito Santo has a quick chat with Sky about Kane. “He has to continue his preparation. I think Harry needs to work, he worked today, and he’ll keep on working until he’s ready to help the team,” he says. “He needs to be fit. A different case with Bryan because he came from the Olympic Games. For them it’s important for them to be here, to see the hotel, the stadium.”
Tottenham’s new away kit, though. Thoughts? It’s clearly appalling, but I quite like it anyway.
And finally, here’s a short story on the teams from PA Media:
Harry Kane was not involved in Tottenham’s Premier League opener against Manchester City.
The England captain, who wants to join City this summer, only had two training sessions with the first team following his late return from holiday.
And it was decided he was not fit enough to even take a place on the bench and did not travel to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Tanguy Ndombele was also left out for Spurs, who named an unchanged side from the one that started the final friendly against Arsenal last week.
Jack Grealish made his full debut for City following his 100million move from Aston Villa, while Kevin De Bruyne was named on the bench.
And here’s Richard Jolly on Pep Guardiola’s pre-match thoughts, which are, in short, that if some sheikh wants to monetise the natural wealth of the nation his family happen to rule by birthright and funnel the funds into his own and eventually Pep’s own pockets, “what’s the problem?”
Pep Guardiola is the big spender whose greatest triumphs came on the cheap, even if it may not make him the poster boy for penury. As he cited his cut-price Champions League wins, the impression he gave is that he sees them as part of football’s rich tapestry. Guardiola is set to become the first manager to field a £100m footballer in the Premier League – and if he has his way then Jack Grealish will only possess the status as the division’s record signing for a few weeks.
If Sunday’s game at Tottenham doubles up as a tug of war for Harry Kane’s services, money may form a familiar backdrop. Guardiola can be an alchemist of a coach and an inventive tactician, but he is familiar with the accusation he has become a chequebook manager. English football’s maiden nine-figure buy may be used in the case for the prosecution. Tottenham offered £25m for Grealish in 2018; perhaps Daniel Levy’s reluctance to go higher amounted to a false economy as, three years later, Manchester City paid four times as much for the Aston Villa captain.
“Each club has its own reality, its own history,” Guardiola said. “And every owner of every club decides how he wants to live. Our owners do not want to benefit, they want to reinvest in the team. There is Chelsea with [Roman] Abramovich and our club with Sheikh Mansour. They want to be in this world, they want to be buying into football. What is the problem?”
More here:
Here’s David Hytner on Nuno Espirito Santo’s pre-match thoughts, though events have rather overtaken the story given that we now know that Kane is spending the afternoon at home:
Nuno Espírito Santo has suggested he will factor in the turmoil that Harry Kane is experiencing before deciding whether to name him on Sunday in the squad to face Manchester City – the club that the Tottenham striker is desperate to join.
Kane trained with his Spurs teammates on Friday for the first time in pre-season after a later-than-expected return from a holiday in the Bahamas and Florida (at least from the club’s point of view) and a requirement to quarantine for five days.
The England captain has made himself available for selection but there have to be questions over his fitness and psychological readiness to play against the team that are preparing a £127m offer for him. The Spurs chairman, Daniel Levy, is not inclined to sell for less than £150m.
More here:
That Manchester City team news tweet is interesting. How have they made Grealish’s face so shiny? Someone seems to have been at him with the furniture polish.
The teams!
The teams have been confirmed, the big news being that as widely trailed Harry Kane is absent and Jack Grealish is starting:
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Tanganga, Sanchez, Dier, Reguilon, Skipp, Hojbjerg, Bergwijn, Alli, Lucas Moura, Son. Subs: Doherty, Romero, Winks, Gil Salvatierra, Sissoko, Lo Celso, Gollini, Davies, Scarlett.
Man City: Ederson, Joao Cancelo, Dias, Ake, Mendy, Grealish, Fernandinho, Gundogan, Mahrez, Torres, Sterling. Subs: Walker, Stones, Gabriel Jesus, Zinchenko, Steffen, Laporte, Rodri, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva.
Referee: Anthony Taylor.
Your team to face @ManCity! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/BUFdDIMny8
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) August 15, 2021
TEAM NEWS IS IN! 💪
— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 15, 2021
XI | Ederson, Cancelo, Dias, Ake, Mendy, Fernandinho (C), Gundogan, Grealish, Mahrez, Torres, Sterling.
SUBS | Steffen, Walker, Stones, Jesus, Zinchenko, Laporte, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Bernardo.
📋 @HaysWorldwide
🔷 #ManCity | https://t.co/axa0klD5re pic.twitter.com/8yfNFHOSVe
Kane not in Tottenham squad
Harry Kane has been left out of the Tottenham squad for this match, apparently because he is not fit enough to play.
Hello world!
The first Premier League weekend of the season gets a big box-office send-off as last season’s champions come up against ... well ... what are Spurs these days exactly? A big club with a fantastic stadium and some excellent players, obviously, but one whose title pretentions suddenly seem a distant memory.
I wrote today about Hugo Lloris’s thoughts ahead of this game and the start of the new season (link below), and one of the telling lines was his suggestion that “sometimes it’s better to step back a little bit to come back stronger”. Tottenham are not currently competing at the highest level, he’s admitting, but they are preparing at some point in the near future to come back stronger.
This could be a long road or a short one, and Nuno Espirito Santo could be the right appointment to hasten their journey along it, or he could not. Time will tell, but this game might offer a few hints even if they approach it without Harry Kane, who has only just returned to training and even that only grudgingly, and the exciting Bryan Gil, who was playing the Olympic final last weekend and even if Richarlison managed to play both in that game in Tokyo and Everton’s yesterday, he didn’t have the added disadvantage of being at a new club.
Manchester City will also have a weakened line-up, with Phil Foden and Kevin de Bruyne injured, Aymeric Laporte self-isolating and a variety of players potentially a bit knackered after summer exertions on behalf of their national teams. Jack Grealish, though, is expected to start.
Here’s how the teams might line up:
And here’s some pre-match reading, in the shape of that interview with Hugo Lloris:
