Five in a row has taken on a different meaning for Manchester City and Pep Guardiola. It was supposed to signify their pursuit of an unprecedented fifth consecutive English title. Instead, the immediate significance comes from another historic first. Guardiola has lost five consecutive matches, his worst ever run bookended by reverses against Tottenham Hotspur.
If the first scarcely left City distraught, with Guardiola unworried by exiting the Carabao Cup, the latest was more emphatic, more dramatic, more chastening, more stunning. Guardiola’s joint heaviest defeat became an embarrassment. He risks being expelled from the title race. City could find themselves eight points behind Liverpool on Sunday, perhaps returning from Anfield next week 11 adrift. That, Guardiola conceded, would be too big a gap to bridge.
“After eight years here I knew sooner or later we would drop,” he said. But perhaps not this far, this fast. Empires can collapse suddenly and dramatically but City’s was supposed to have been reinforced. This began as an evening of celebration; it became one of humiliation and capitulation. The new-contract bounce, of Guardiola committing his future to the club until 2027, lasted for about 12 minutes of football. The gaudy on-pitch presentation of the Ballon d’Or to Rodri was followed by an illustration of how much City miss their injured talisman. A third straight league defeat showed a now familiar fragility. City were caught on the break too easily and too often. A team without a proper defensive midfielder lost to one with a potent attacking midfielder.
Because, while the Spaniard gazed on from the stands, the dominant figure was James Maddison. Perhaps a fit Rodri would have prevented his seven-minute double – Maddison was left unmarked for each, beautifully as he took them – as the recalled, resurgent Englishman upstaged the City manager and award winner. He once infamously said that, when he goes out for a roast dinner with his family, he wants to be the main man.
He turned this evening into his 28th birthday party. “It was a perfect night for him,” said Ange Postecoglou. Maddison had spent much of the last month on the bench. This was quite a comeback.
For City, it was quite a setback. They had defenders returning from injury. They still looked unable to keep a clean sheet without Rodri. “In this moment we are fragile defensively,” said Guardiola. The notion that recent losses could be attributed to uncertainty about Guardiola’s future was disabused. They instead again looked an ageing side who were too susceptible to counterattacks; Guardiola a manager casting around in search of solutions. He began with a Dyche-esque 4-4-1-1. He tried three different players on the left wing. City still had shots – some 23 of them – but couldn’t score against a Spurs team lacking their first-choice centre-backs. Guardiola ended up suffering a first home league defeat for more than two years.
And Tottenham cemented their status as the division’s great enigmas. They have recorded a remarkable Manchester double: after winning 3-0 at Old Trafford, they went one better at the Etihad. Yet they had just lost at home to Ipswich. Angeball can be something of an oddball, but on such nights it is glorious for Tottenham.
“Today was about doubling down on our footballing principles,” said a vindicated Postecoglou. “City test you in every football way possible. You have to do a bit of everything: defend, work hard, be disciplined and play football and in all four areas we got to a really strong level.” This was arguably his finest hour-and-a-half as Spurs manager and he added: “They have got an unbelievable record here at home. It isn’t something you can be blasé about.”
Postecoglou got his decisions spectacularly right. He brought back the exiled Maddison, who scored twice. He moved Dejan Kulusevski, his player of the season, from midfield to the right wing and the Swede was superb. He dropped his top scorer, Brennan Johnson, but brought him on to score the fourth goal.
First Maddison ghosted in behind the returning John Stones to volley in Kulusevski’s cross. Then he dinked a shot over Ederson after exchanging passes with Son Heung Min. It was a double of a different kind for Josko Gvardiol, who backed off to allow Kulusevski to cross for the opener and contrived to pass to Maddison in the build-up to the second. Gvardiol was also City’s main provider, the outlet on the left. He created eight chances. He was simultaneously City’s best attacker and worst defender.
Damningly for him, Tottenham’s third goal came from his flank, too. Pedro Porro, who was owned by City but never played for them, slotted in after a wonderful cross-field move, with Kulusevski popping up on the left to curl a pass to Dominic Solanke, who teed up the right-back. The fourth featured three substitutes: Timo Werner latching on to Jack Grealish’s misplaced pass and hurtling past Kyle Walker to give Johnson a tap-in. As Ederson made fine saves from Son, Solanke and Kulusevski, Tottenham had the opportunities to score seven.
Which made some of City’s efforts feel rather irrelevant in the final reckoning. Erling Haaland, up against Tottenham’s defensive duo of Radu Draguson and Ben Davies, had two efforts before Maddison struck, a third fine chance just after his second goal. One was deflected wide by Davies, one well saved by Guglielmo Vicario, one ballooned over the bar. He went on to curl a shot against the upright from an acute angle. Vicario made a terrific save from Ilkay Gundogan. Tottenham had to defend and did. When City had to defend, they couldn’t.
And for the second successive game, Guardiola found himself greeted by taunts of “sacked in the morning”. He did not need the new contract to know it will not happen. But the first manager to win four consecutive English titles is now the first City manager since Stuart Pearce to lose five in a row. For Guardiola, it is an infamous five.