Tottenham 0, Man City 1
Erling Haaland’s first half goal at the Tottenham Stadium was enough to hand Manchester City a precious win in the race for a top four finish.
Embed from Getty ImagesCity boss Pep Guardiola admitted that City should have finished their chances but praised his team for keeping Spurs at bay in the second half.
“We suffered in the second half after we could not close the game in the first half.
“We have given away an unbelievable amount of goals but fortunately we finished good today.
“For Champions league qualification this is an incredibly good result for us. Never will [we be] the Old City this season. Old City was too good, but we will be back.
“The game was for Tottenham before Son, Kulusevski and Spence came in so it’s unfair to say it was because of them.
“Ederson was good, the defending was good, [Abdudokir] Khusanov and Ruben [Dias] were extraordinary.
Reserving extra praise for City’s popular young Uzbek defender Khusanov, Guardiola added: “He travelled without a wash bag and arrived at Spurs to play football.
“He’s so fast, and quick with the ball. He breaks the lines with his passing. He can improve but he’s so young and the people adore him.
“What happened in the first 5 minutes against Chelsea is not easy to handle but he was calm and played recently have been really good.”
“And in the end we could take a good result for us.”
Erling Haaland scored the goal after 12 minutes which eventually turned out to be the winner for City after a tap in following some great work down the left from Jeremy Doku – his 28th strike of the season.
And Haaland and Savinho should have added to City’s tally after an excellent first half from City.
But Spurs were resurgent in the second half and City had to hang on at the end after Djed Spence, Dejan Kulusevski and Son Heung-min were brought on.
Son was denied by Ederson who had earlier kept City in the game with a save from Wilson Odobert as the visitors took the precious points away from London.