How Tottenham surprised Manchester City

At the end of a strange fortnight for Tottenham Hotspur, the defining image will be Ange Postecoglou raising his fist in triumph on the touchline at the Etihad Stadium.

Spurs lost at home to Ipswich Town in their previous game just before the international break (the promoters’ first league win of the season at the 11th attempt), announced a bizarrely timed redesign of the club badge and drew criticism for appealing Rodrigo Bentancur’s seven-match ban from the Football Association to bring racist comments about his teammate and captain Son Heung-min. The pressure was on ahead of this trip north to avoid a sixth defeat in 12 games.

This was supposed to be a special night for Manchester City.

There was a presentation for Rodri before kick-off to celebrate the midfielder who won the 2024 Ballon d’Or award as the best footballer in the world over the previous year and this was also the first game since Pep Guardiola signed a two -year extension to a contract that was due to expire next summer.

What nobody expected was Tottenham beating City 4-0.

That’s how they beat the champions for the second time in four weeks.

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The roots of Tottenham’s fantastic victory can be traced back to Postecoglou’s press conference after the 2-1 defeat at home to Ipswich. The Australian took responsibility for their underwhelming performance and admitted he would consider adjusting his approach. The two-week international break that followed gave him time to think, and the biggest benefit was James Maddison.

Most of the club’s first-team squad were away on international duty, but Maddison was left out of England’s plans for the games against Greece and Ireland. Maddison’s form has been inconsistent this season and he has been named on the bench for Spurs’ two Premier League games before last night. It felt like a big call to start him against City in a game where a lot of defensive work would be required.

“He was really good for us earlier in the season and he had a couple of flat games, but the whole team has,” Postecoglou said. “I also think there is more to Madders, and that is up to me. I always say that is my role as a leader. If I don’t get the maximum out of the players, the team against Ipswich or individuals, then it’s a self-reflection of ‘can I do something different with them?’

“The thing about Madders was he obviously didn’t go on international duty. He had two weeks with us and the coaches worked really hard with him and he worked really hard in training. I could tell and said he was ready for a great fight.”

Maddison’s two goals to put Tottenham 2-0 up after 20 minutes last night will grab the headlines, but his all-round performance was phenomenal. He intercepted a pass from Phil Foden, had a challenge on Bernardo Silva and knew how to take care of possession.

He drew City’s forwards in before showering balls past them to start attacks. It was the perfect way to celebrate yesterday’s 28th birthday.

“I came out of the team for a few games and when you come out of the team and you’re a bigger name or a leader of the group, people start asking questions and pointing fingers, but I’m really good,” Maddison told the BBC’s Match of the Day highlights show. “I never doubt myself. Sometimes you go through tough times, I had a few bad games, but I have the confidence to know that I’ll get through it and be there for my team, and I was in day.”

Maddison has been overshadowed by Spurs teammate Dejan Kulusevski this season. The Swedish international’s permanent switch to a central attacking midfield role has made him one of the best and most exciting players in the division. However, Kulusevski returned to his previous position on the right wing against City and caused havoc. The 24-year-old told reporters afterwards that this game “suited us perfectly”.

“City have a lot of the ball, so sometimes we can rest when we defend,” Kulusevski said. “There is also so much space up there, we play one on one, and then it is always dangerous because we have a lot of quality. It’s always great to play good teams because they always want to play football. When you play in lower teams, sometimes it’s not. Not much football is played because there are many mistakes, many injuries and it is slow going.”

Kulusevski spoke about their opponents’ man-marking approach. City tried to win the ball high up the pitch, but if Tottenham bypassed their pressure, Dominic Solanke, Son and Kulusevski would often find themselves in dangerous counter-attacking situations. Pedro Porro’s goal to make it 3-0 early in the second half is a case in point. Kulusevski got Ilkay Gundogan in the middle of the pitch and Spurs took advantage of the hollow holes that opened up.

“We knew we had to defend at different times and with (Kulusevski) and Sonny out there, I thought if we could get the ball to them really early, then City are quite aggressive with their approach,” Postecoglou said. “They (City) like to defend almost man-to-man because they have excellent defenders who like to defend, but with Dom there as well, we like that kind of setup where we can get the ball to them earlier.

“That’s the theory. Practice isn’t always that easy because they put pressure on you and I thought our built-up play today, at times we were a bit stuck, especially in the second half, but we just kept trying to hit those areas that we needed it.”

This result is all the more remarkable because Tottenham did it without both of their first-choice centre-backs – Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero – due to injury. Ben Davies, normally a full-back, made his first league start this season and was partnered in central defense by Radu Dragusin.

Romania international Dragusin had a terrible night against Victor Osimhen in last month’s defeat to Galatasaray and Ipswich striker Liam Delap also gave him trouble. He was caught out by Savinho’s tricks on a couple of occasions last night, yet he constantly pressured Erling Haaland and hit a clever long ball that directly led to Maddison scoring the opening goal. The 22-year-old has looked shaky in possession since joining Spurs from Genoa in January for £25 million ($31.4 million). This was only his eighth start in the top flight and Postecoglou clearly trusts him to improve.

“You have to be (fantastic) against City because obviously they have a big Erling up there, but the way they pass the ball, the areas they consistently probe, you have to be focused all the time and I thought Ben and Radu were really focused,” Postecoglou said. “(Goalkeeper Guglielmo) Vicario behind them was also really positive with his positioning and the way they communicated. I thought Biss (midfielder Yves Bissouma, despite being booked 18 seconds into the game) was important for that.

“The key for us was that we had to do it as a collective. When you play City you can’t rely on individuals to find solutions out there and collectively I thought we defended really well but credit to those two guys and not only defensively, we had to play from the back, it was the only way we had to get balls to the areas we wanted to, and Ben and Radu weren’t afraid of that, but they led consistently after the ball and after we had to play from behind.”

Tottenham failed to beat any of the other members of the ‘Big Six’ away from home last season. In comparison, they have taken six points from their two trips to Manchester in this one, scoring seven goals and keeping two clean sheets.

If beating United at Old Trafford at the end of September was impressive, last night’s performance is on another level. This is the joint biggest defeat of Pep Guardiola’s managerial career. The last time he lost 4-0 at home was in April 2014, when Real Madrid beat Bayern Munich in the second leg of a Champions League semi-final.

It’s amazing how Spurs seem to swing from one extreme to the other, but they should be enjoying this moment. They just need to make sure it’s not another false dawn like others this season.

(Top photo: MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)