3 Things We Learnt from Spurs v Manchester City

What Did We Learn from Watching City beat Tottenham?

Beautiful Football Needs a Beautiful Pitch

In pursuing a blueprint to deliver entertaining attacking football, Manchester City have invested heavily in recruiting Pep Guardiola as manager and developing a squad of real talent. So far this season we have seen the Manchester City team begin to eclipse their record breaking season from 2017/18, in terms of the level and intensity of their performances. But in order for this free flowing beautiful football to flourish there is a minimum underpinning requirement: grass.

Much has already been made of the pitch at Wembley Stadium following the American football matches and Boxing which have taken place in recent weeks. The surface of the pitch was poor – it was cut up, muddy and heavily sanded. This actively prevented any beautiful football from being played along the ground as the ball bobbled around.

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Almost as bad as the playing surface were the white lines still on the pitch and sponsorship from the American football games. This in particular seemed to cause problems for all the players operating along the wings as they were misjudging the size of the pitch. After the game the players said the markings were interfering in their peripheral vision, making play at speed difficult.

The FA and Premier League have a series of clear rules present about what sponsorship can be shown arounda ground and on the pitch during a football game. The rules extend to the line markings on the pitch and its clear that in allowing the game to go ahead – both the FA and Premier League are in clear breach of their own rules. Whilst its unlikely any action will be taken, the whole scenario just reinforces the view that the state of the national stadium just reinforces the view that the FA are inept.

Mendy can have an off day

Benjamin Mendy has operated this season as a flying wingback, an inside left, a full back and a left winger. Against Tottenham he barely even operated as a footballer. The extent to which his performance along the wing was disrupted by the pitch being particularly poor in those channels, or whether it was because he was targeted by the opposition is unclear.

Any player can have an off day, and Mendy had an off day. Like all players he will not be judged by one poor performance but rather by how he recovers from it.

Fernandinho can still do it

Our Brazilian midfielder may be approaching the twilight of his top level career but yesterdau was a game where we needed him to put in a performance, and he did. He was needed to sweep up in front of the back four, to eliminate any rising threat especially to prevent Tottenham breaking through our ranks and being in a position to split our centre backs.

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Fernandinho accomplished all of this in a professional performance in difficult conditions. He committed tactical fouls to stop us being caught on the break and up until his yellow card was immaculate in possession. Once he was booked he had to curtail his own harrying of the opposition and this reduced his effectiveness, but this was a performance we crucially needed to see out the victory.

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