Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Manchester City: Hits and Flops from the dramatic game | Premier League 2019-20
Jose Mourinho picked up his biggest win to date as Tottenham Hotspur boss today, when his side defeated Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City 2-0 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The win puts Spurs within touching distance of the all-important Champions League spots, while City are now a massive 22 points behind Liverpool at the top of the table.
Did Tottenham deserve their win? It’s questionable; the Cityzens had 67% possession and had 18 shots on goal to Spurs’ 3, but of course, football is all about the goals you score and concede, not about possession, and in reality it was the home players who were often more impressive.
Here are the hits and the flops from today’s game in North London.
Hit: Steven Bergwijn
Despite suggesting Steven Bergwijn might be used from the bench in his Tottenham debut, Jose Mourinho wasted no time in deploying his new signing from the off, and the £27m man was pitted against Manchester City’s Kyle Walker on the left side as a wide forward, with Lucas Moura playing centrally.
Despite some bright sparks early in the game, it didn’t look like it would be the Dutchman’s day. Bergwijn was dispossessed twice, failed to make an impact with his dribbling ability, and once he was moved into a central role in the second half, had the same issue in trying to reach some long balls that Lucas had in the first half.
But then came a switch to the right hand side, and suddenly Bergwijn came alive; he won a corner by knocking the ball into a City defender, and then scored a fantastic goal to put his side ahead directly after the set-piece. It wasn’t the easiest chance to score, either; the ball came to the former PSV man from Lucas, and Bergwijn was able to chest it before volleying past a couple of defenders and into the bottom corner.
The new signing’s debut was curtailed less than 10 minutes later when he was withdrawn with what looked like a mild calf strain, but overall, the goal made him an instant hero to Tottenham fans, and his first match must go down as a big success.