City looked to continue their good form as they headed to Spurs on Sunday, with a good opportunity to move even close to securing a top 3 place. They managed to accomplish just that, with Sergio Aguero scoring a good goal in a 1-0 win for The Blues – although it wasn’t quite as easy as some might have hoped.
After the dramatic 3-2 win against Villa last weekend, Manuel Pellegrini made two changes for the visit to North London, with Yaya Toure exiting due to injury, with last week’s hero Fernandinho taking his place alongside Fernando in central midfield. Frank Lampard continued despite his age, and it was Jesus Navas who made way on the wings, with James Milner coming in for the diminutive Spaniard.
Despite City having the opportunity to capitalise on a third consecutive loss on Saturday evening, The Blues came out and put in a lacklustre performance in the first half, with Spurs keeping hold of the ball for the majority of the game and looking much more confident on the ball. However, it was Aguero who came closest first, during a rare City attack. The ball was crossed in from the left, and found its way to the Argentine at the far post 12 yards out, which the leading scorer struck sweetly with his right boot, but without enough curve to put any real danger on Hugo Lloris’ goal.
Aguero was also involved in the action again on 22 minutes, when James Milner pumped a ball forwards. Lloris came out to claim it, but slipped as he reached the ball, allowing Aguero to nip in behind him, being chased by Fazio. Before he could reach the ball, the City man tripped, clipped by Fazio, which allowed the ball to run away from him while he called for a penalty. There was definitely contact from the Spurs defender, but it might have been harsh to give a penalty for that.
Seven minutes later however, Aguero made no mistake. The chance again came from a counter-attack, with Hart started the move after a Spurs corner, with the ball ending up at the feet of Silva going into the Tottenham half. He spotted the darting run of Aguero, and sliced the Spurs defence open with a brilliant pass, which the Argentine took and then put past Lloris into the top corner with his first touch to send the travelling Blues wild.
The hosts hotted up their attacks in the remainder of the half, and looked threatening to Joe Hart. The closest they came was from Ryan Mason, with the newly-capped England man springing the offside trap, and receiving the ball from a cross. The City defenders stood still, expecting the offside decision which never came (and rightly so), but thankfully Hart was alert and able to block the shot when Mason finally realised he wasn’t offside. A fine example of Hart’s exquisite shot-stopping in recent weeks. Due to that save, City went in at half-time 1-0 to the good.
It took a while for the action to return to the game in the second half, but the first sign it was back came when James Milner broke the corner flag in frustration. Minutes later, Harry Kane had a good opportunity to level the game after Martin Demichelis misjudged the ball and lost the race against the Spurs striker. Thankfully (for City, anyway) Hart was out to put pressure on his compatriot, who struggled to find the space to shoot and by the time the ball left his boot the chance had gone.
Seconds later, Aguero really could have made Kane pay for his mistake after another fine run in typical Sergio style. The ball was played long towards Aguero, who managed to play the ball across the box despite being held by Fazio. He wriggled free from the defender, and made another great run into the box as the ball was played through to him, which he controlled before turning and hitting it just wide. Were it to have found the net, it would have been a brilliant move.
The next big incident came in the 70-74 minute region. Nasri, returning from injury, made an appearance as substitute for Frank Lampard. The Frenchman’s biggest contribution was making a run down the left before being dispossessed by Federico Fazio. As Spurs made their way back down the pitch, only for Kolarov to foul Erik Lamela, Nasri went down with an injury to what appeared to be his groin and had to be replaced by Wilfried Bony. It’s bound to be one of (if not the) shortest appearances of Samir Nasri’s career, but hopefully he won’t be absent for too long.
Spurs put heavy pressure on the City defence for the rest of the game, with relief coming only from strong clearances and solid defending from The Blues. Despite that, Spurs had their chances and pulled a good save out of Joe Hart with minutes remaining, when Erik Lamela got onto a cross and hit the ball down into the ground, with Hart keeping it out when it seemed there was no danger.
City held on despite the excruciating five minutes of injury time, and now sit three points clear of Arsenal and five clear of United with just 3 games remaining. Automatic Champions League group stage qualification looks increasingly more likely as we enter the closing weeks of the season, and although we can no longer be called “champions”, things do seem like they’re looking up. We now look towards next week’s visit to home turf, with the opportunity to relegate Queens Park Rangers and move closer to second or third place.
