We let them play.
We didn't have enough dirty players on the pitch willing to foul in the right way.
Dembele, Dier and Alli were great at this. Even Wanyama on his day.
We made 4 fouls in the entire games. Not a single booking!
De Bruyne needed to be fully cleared out in the first half when he was running the game.
What's funny is people miss this .. we had 4 fouls, City had 14 .. seems odd for a side that was dominating? no, every time we got the ball and tried to build our rhythm, tactical foul.
Make no mistake, what makes City dangerous is the mix of physicality, tactical fouling (that goes unpunished), pace and genuinely brilliant players (yes, fudging you KDB)
Let me explain what Spurs did well yesterday as very few seem to understand of want to give credit for
- We stayed in the game, no matter how overrun, no matter how outplayed at moments, we stayed in the game, hence we were always in a position to take something from it
- We were clinical, 3 shots on target, 2 good goals (not flukey/lucky, well taken, calculated goals)
- First team in 15 attempts to get a point off City at home, 5 of last 8 goals scored against them at home .. so for as "bad" as we were, we somehow seem to do more than others
And what City did wrong was not make it count, yes, lots of shots, but how many world class saves or last ditch clearances?
We have had games where we dominated and hit 20+ shots too close to keeper or in savable areas and left frustrated and without 3 points, this is no different.