Tottenham v Manchester City Champions League Quarter Final 1st Leg

The thing about these games of Cup football is that anything can happen. Form is not necessarily a clue as to the result. It does not matter how you have played consistently in every other game, all that matters is how you arrive at the moment.

The team selection by Pep Guardiola raised a number of questions. There was no Bernardo, Kevin De Bruyne was dropped to the bench and Mahrez was preferred on the wing to Sane. Whilst it became clear Bernardo had in fact picked up an injury in training, some of the decisions still caused concern amongst the fans. Delph was back in, Otamendi was preferred at the back to Stones and Gundogan and Silva were partners in midfield.

The stand out moment for City in the first half was a penalty. Rose gave the penalty away with a handball which was punished after the intervention of VAR and up stepped Aguero. Now we all know Aguero tends to need a run of games before he hits form. And so it was proved as he hit a soft shot that was easily saved by Lloris.

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Manchester City then played a strange game plan where we looked like a shadow of our most fluid best. The passes did not connect and we were bullied off the ball. Every challenge we made seemed to end in a yellow card and Tottenham were free to hack our players down without return.

The second half bumbled along in a similar manner. A disjointed and under par Manchester City laboured and toiled but to no avail. There was a brief 10 minute period where Tottenham ran out of steam and City controlled the game, or at least controlled the game because they did not fashion a clear goal scoring opportunity.

Aguero was replaced by Jesus on 70 minutes and the game threatened to peter out. If anything this period was livened up by Harry Kane injuring himself when attempting to foul Fabian Delph. Delph, a player who has missed most of the season through injury, rightly took exception to the challenge and let Kane and Pochettino know. Pochettino was wrong to get involved and really should be able to control his behaviour.

By becoming involved Pochettino wound up the Spurs fans who then booed every time Delph touched the ball. This idiocy then resulted in a fan running on the pitch to confront Delph. It could well be that Tottenham could even find themselves playing in a shiny stadium without any fans.

Tottenham eventually took the lead with a well worked goal which was created by Eriksson who threaded a pass through to Son who took his chance well. City did not really respond to the goal by increasing their intensity or energy on the ball. Instead there were further mistakes as we gave the ball away and lacked the final pass.

In the end this was a strangely deflating performance. We have hit a drop in our levels just at the wrong point in the campaign. Of course at a single goal behind, this tie is all to play for. Although what probably needs to happen is we have to decide if this is a competition we actually really want to win. On the strength of this performance it would appear as though the City team are as ambivalent about the competition as the fans.

In the return leg Tottenham have to simply play on the counter and City will have to be at their very best in order to progress. The game is all there to play for and the one thing we can be sure about is that if we put our minds to it , then we will play to the very end.