Match date: 18 October 2014

A match between the title defenders and top four hopefuls as well as two of the league’s best defensive sides, statistically speaking.

Manchester City find themselves in a similar position to last year at this stage in the Premier League, with just one less point, but came into the match in second place behind Chelsea, who remain unbeaten in their start to the season. Perhaps with one eye on their midweek Champions League tie, Pellegrini opted to rest the likes of Yaya Toure, Fernandinho, and Edin Dzeko.

Tottenham have struggled to score so far this season, with just nine goals in their opening seven matches. Interestingly enough, Pochettino opted to start Roberto Soldado, who has scored just two goals from open play during his Spurs career following his £26m move from Valencia. Pochettino also gave Fazio his debut, leaving Jan Vertonghen on the bench.

Match Tempo

The opening stages of the match set the groundwork for what would be a very high energy match. Within the first fifteen minutes of the match, both sides got forward quickly and did so with good numbers in support, that left both sides open for counter attacks and saw a goal scored for each side.

Spurs had more chances at the start and the likes of Lamela, Soldado, and Eriksen all had a good amount of touches inside Manchester City’s penalty area and Ryan Mason was close to scoring the opener after a good run into the box after the above trio combined well outside of the Manchester City penalty area. Both Demichelis and Kompany were drawn to the ball, which opened up the space for Mason to run into. Mason won the ball back for Spurs when Manchester City were trying to work their way out after Hart’s save, which helped set up a chance for Eriksen that he shot over. This 30 second phase of the game summed up the first half well. Manchester City’s defense looked very shaky throughout the match as Tottenham played quick, tidy passes in and around the penalty area.

Manchester City scored first, however, through Agüero. It again showed the tempo of the match as City had good possession of the ball, lost it, gained it back through Sagna, and in two passes the ball was at Aguero’s feet with time in the penalty area.

Spurs responded well, however. Pochettino’s sides are typically known for their good, organised pressing and while against Manchester City, they allowed the home side to have the ball, with numbers forward, they would look to press. Mason was involved again, this time dispossessing Fernando with Spurs players higher up the pitch.

Much of the match’s tempo was set by Ryan Mason and Frank Lampard, at different stages of their respective careers, but both who brought energy to their side that their midfield partner did not. Neither, Capoue or Fernando got involved in the match in any great extent both with and without the ball. They were both in their respective sides to allow the likes of Mason and Lampard and later Fernandinho, to get forward, but Mason was more successful in tackling and brought more energy when pressing than Capoue did for Spurs and Lampard and Fernandinho did the same for Manchester City than Fernando and so it was no surprise that neither Capoue or Fernando lasted a full 90.

Sergio Agüero

A few days before the match, Pochettino described Agüero as the best striker in the world, stating that neither Messi or Ronaldo are classic strikers, and compared Agüero to Mozart. For the neutral, for Pochettino’s comments, Agüero did not disappoint. He was spectacular on the day in every aspect of his play, his finishing, his movement, his involvement in build up play; all were fantastic. He played as the lone striker in a 4-2-3-1, with Silva in support, but his movement was all over the pitch. He was able to find space, dropping into the space between Spurs’ back line and midfield, as well as in the space behind the back line, which found him isolated in another 1v1 against Kaboul for his fourth goal and prior to that, another 1v1 with Kaboul where he forced Lloris into a save.

His first goal showed a good combination of his finishing and movement. As Lampard received the ball from Sagna and took his first touch towards the penalty area, Agüero began peeling off to the left, creating space for himself and inviting the pass from Lampard. Upon receiving it, Kaboul closed the Argentine down, but Agüero stayed composed, took an extra touch to give himself space, and then hit a low, hard shot to Lloris’ far post. It was his first shot on target, of which he’d have eight, one more than Tottenham.

Above, you can see just where Agüero received the ball. He often found himself drifting into the wide areas, creating space for himself and staying there to help create overloads for City. This was an easy area for Manchester City to exploit due to the lack of defensive work rate from Lamela and Chadli.

Agüero’s movement inside the penalty area was just as impressive, despite it being congested. He peeled away from defenders in the first half, receiving a pull back from Navas and forcing Lloris into a save in the first half. In the second half, he found space at the front post when Sagna pulled the ball back. Later in the second half, Fazio was sent off for pulling Agüero back while making his movement in the box to get onto a cross from Navas.

In the end, Agüero struck four times for Manchester City, scoring two penalty kicks and missing another in between his two clinical finishes in the Tottenham penalty area.

Tottenham’s Changes

In a way, Pochettino ended the match how he should have started it. He tried to have his side play a high line, but with Kaboul and Fazio, a high line was always going to be exposed by Agüero. Fazio lacks the pace to play in a high line and you could see that just before his red card. The Tottenham line was high, Rose’s header was poor, and Agüero was able to get in front of Fazio en route to the penalty area, only for the defender to pull him back and concede a penalty and red card. Pochettino was forced to introduce Vertonghen, who would have been more comfortable in a high line.

Pochettino made two changes in the second half while the score was still 2-1; Townsend on for Lamela and Dembele on for Capoue. The latter of these changes was very positive. As mentioned earlier, Capoue’s influence on the match was limited, by Dembele came on and was very positive in his play. Alongside Mason, Dembele added more energy to the Tottenham midfield and was able to break the lines on the dribble as well as bring energy when Tottenham were defending.

Conclusion

An excellent game from Agüero saw Manchester City easily win the match, but Spurs had their chances and it is surprising, based on their attacking abilities in this match, that Spurs are struggling to score as much as they have so far this season. Ten goals in eight matches won’t be enough for Tottenham to secure a top four finish.

If Agüero is able to stay fit and continue his good form, Manchester City will be able to close down Chelsea’s lead.

Both sides have midweek fixtures, Manchester City travel to Russia for a Champions League match against CSKA Moscow, while Tottenham host Asteras Tripolis in the Europa League.