Manchester City dismantle sorry Tottenham Hotspur

Jesus Navas was fantastic on the right win for Manchester City

With Manchester City in 9th and Tottenham not far ahead of them, it was vital that the Blues grabbed all three points to keep in touch with the early pace-setters at the top of the Premier League.

City did so in awesome style. They flew out of the blocks scoring just 13 seconds in and added two more before half time. Spurs were shell-shocked and didn’t recover in the second-half, conceding three more goals to head back down to London suffering a 6-0 defeat.

City moved back into the top four after another superb home victory but the defeat leaves Spurs down in 9th.  

City’s shooting was fantastic as they put Spurs to the sword. From 11 shots on target, they managed to score six goals – a sublime figure. In total, Man City had 16 shots to Spurs’ 13 but their impressive accuracy was the difference as their ruthlessness sent them back into the top four.

City were clinical, scoring with every 2.6 shots and 1.8 shots on target. Manuel Pellegrini’s men took most of their shots from inside Huge Lloris’ penalty area. Compare that to Spurs who took most of their shots from outside the penalty area and you have your answer as to why City scored so many.

At the Etihad, City had beaten Norwich City 7-0 in their last match, and with the six they knocked past Tottenham, they’ve now scored 26 goals in six home matches, an average of over four goals per home game.

Man of the Match

Jesus Navas was fantastic for City this afternoon, scoring twice and creating two chances (getting one assist) . He opened the scoring at the Etihad after just 13 seconds, pouncing on Aguero’s saved shot to swing the ball over Lloris and into the top corner.

He was a constant menace throughout, completing a third of his take ons and completing 78% of his passes as well as hitting 67% of his three shots on target.

Performance Score

In the first-half alone, City were phenomenal. They shot out of the blocks and shocked Spurs into submission, scoring three times before the half-time whistle. Their Performance Score was impressive, too, reaching 212, 314 points ahead of Spurs’ score.

Villas-Boas side finished with a dismal -159 and were never above zero.

As the pace of the game slowed down, City’s growth in score slowed down but increased dramatically again with the sixth goal from Navas in the 90th minute.

Spurs gradually got worse as the match went on, whereas City were fantastic and kept improving until the final whistle. A completely dominant performance.

Key Observations

Spurs’ decision to play a high defensive line at the Etihad was a huge risk and didn’t pay off with City’s pressing and blistering speed punishing the north Londoners throughout.

Sergio Aguero, Samir Nasri and Jesus Navas were key in City’s breaks and their pace stretched the Spurs defence constantly. Aguero often drifted out to the left with Alvaro Negredo fitting in nicely through the middle and causing trouble. It paid off for the second goal, too, as Negredo’s presence caused havoc inside the six-yard box leading to Sandro’s own goal.

Andre Villas-Boas will be seriously disappointed with his team’s performance but he must take most of the blame having taken the huge risk of playing such a high defensive line away to Manchester City.