LONDON -- Manchester City beat Tottenham 3-1 on Saturday to edge closer to the Premier League title.
A dominant display saw Pep Guardiola’s men bounce back from three-straight defeats in style, with goals from Gabriel Jesus, Ilkay Gundogan and Raheem Sterling doing the damage, as they will soon be crowned as the Champions of England.
Here’s what we learned from Wembley.
CITY ANSWER CRITICS: BUT CAN THEY BE MORE CLINICAL?
After the week they’ve had, Pep Guardiola’s men showed plenty of guts to dominate the first half and they deserved to lead by more than one goal at half time. Still, they got the job done and now thy could seal the title on Sunday if (a big ‘if’) Man United lose at home to West Brom.
With 87 points on the board and 93 goals scored, City have shredded opponents time and again and their performance under the Saturday night lights summed up their two previous outings. Wonderful first half displays where they could have been home and dry but then they unnecessarily got themselves in trouble.
Raheem Sterling scored once but could have had four on Saturday, and that was the case against Man United last weekend in the shock 3-2 defeat after leading 2-0.
It seems ridiculous to say that City could be more clinical as they’ve scored 130 goals in all competitions this season, but given the sheer amount, and quality, of chances they create each game, the fact they’ve scored just six times in their last four outings is low, very low, for City.
They’ve missed Sergio Aguero big time with the Argentine suffering from a knee injury and out of the squad altogether on Saturday, with the jury still out as to whether Jesus can replace him long-term. The Brazilian shanked an effort badly wide in the second half when clean through and Sterling delayed his shot after rounding Lloris and then having another effort blocked wide. City are an unstoppable attacking unit and they moved one win closer to the title, but they could’ve easily won by five or six on Saturday.
DE BRUYNE SHOWS POTY CLASS
Kevin de Bruyne may well win the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award this season (the votes for that award where collected a while back before Mohamed Salah went on his amazing goalscoring spree) and it will be richly deserved.
Amid Salah’s recent heroics, KDB’s brilliant season has become somewhat of an afterthought but the Belgian midfielder ran the show at Wembley, particularly in the second half, as he danced around tackles and responded well to crunching tackles from Eric Dier and Dele Alli in particular.
De Bruyne doesn’t have any weaknesses and his full repertoire was on show on Saturday with flicks, driving runs, and majestic passes. KDB has been consistently excellent and although he may lose some of the POTY awards to Salah, he’s been at a higher level all season long and delivered once again against one of the big boys.
It is a joy to watch KDB in full flow.
LLORIS BECOMING A LIABILITY
Hugo Lloris has made big mistakes in each of his last three Premier League games. The apocalypse is nigh.
So often a bastion of reliability, Lloris is having perhaps the worst spell of his Tottenham career since he joined in 2012 from Lyon. The Spurs and French national team captain is not playing well but it shouldn’t cost Spurs their top four spot as they still have a seven point cushion over Chelsea with five games to go.
But this really isn’t a new thing. Before this game Hugo Lloris had made 5 defensive errors which led to goals, with only Petr Cech having more (6) in the PL. Yet when you think about it, which goalkeepers in the PL are better than Lloris? David de Gea, Ederson and Thibaut Courtois, and that’s about it. This seems to be nothing more than a small blip in form for the Frenchman but the variety of his mistakes (flapping at a cross to let Morata score for Chelsea, hitting the ball off Diouf against Stoke and then lunging into a tackle to give away a penalty) will be concerning.
Lloris, 31, is entering his prime as a goalkeeper and the quintessential sweeper keeper is always eager to launch himself off his line whenever he can, as he did earlier in the first half to great effect. It is too harsh to call Lloris a liability but with mistakes in each of his last three games you can feel Tottenham’s fans not being as confident as they once were as he let in Sterling in the second half, flapped a bit to let in Sterling for City’s third and was too close to call on some of his passes.