Ange Postecoglou’s trophy hopes fading as Manchester City knock Tottenham out of FA Cup

After steering Manchester City to the treble last season, Pep Guardiola was asked if there was anything left for him to achieve in the game. “Score a goal against Spurs away,” he replied. And finally, his footballing bucket list is complete.

Not since the opening of Tottenham Hotspur’s sparkling new stadium in April 2019 had City managed to find the back of the net there – until the 88th minute of their sixth visit, when Ange Postecoglou’s dam wall finally gave way on Friday night (Saturday, AEDT).

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou reacts after Manchester City take the lead in their FA Cup clash.

It was a most un-City-like goal. Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario and Ruben Dias wrestled as they awaited the corner kick. When the ball arrived, Vicario leapt over Dias to punch it down, but it went only as far as Nathan Ake, who almost karate kicked it in. Vicario awaited the intervention of the VAR, but the goal was allowed, the “curse” was lifted and City advanced to the next round of the FA Cup.

“They’re a top team,” Postecoglou said. “They’re the benchmark. We’re not there yet, and we’re under no illusion about that.”

Tottenham deserved to lose. This was probably their worst performances since Postecoglou’s arrival. Completely toothless in attack, they mustered just one shot for the entire match, when Timo Werner’s lovely through ball set up Brennan Johnson, only for his effort to be safely handled by City’s Stefan Ortega. Other than that, they never looked like scoring. While they sometimes worked themselves into good positions, the final ball was missing and the long-awaited introduction of James Maddison in the second half after his 10-week injury lay-off did not help them discover it.

Manchester City celebrate Nathan Ake’s goal.

The opening half was Tottenham’s first at home in all competitions without a single sight on goal in almost four years, which isn’t very “Angeball” at all.

Meanwhile, City brought on Kevin de Bruyne and Jeremy Doku, and the pair of them made sure City’s domination of possession and general play counted on the scoreboard. Doku had a shot saved just before the breakthrough, minutes after two howling errors in quick succession from Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg were left unpunished by de Bruyne and Doku respectively. There were plenty of others before that.

“It’s fair to say they’ve got eight or nine years on us,” Postecoglou said. “I hope that people have a little bit of perspective about the team we’re trying to be. It doesn’t happen in six months. I don’t think even City did it in six months. That doesn’t mean you shy away from the challenge of it, or don’t get disappointed by it, or don’t feel like you could have tackled it in a different way. It’s not an excuse, but the reality of it is that they’re well down the line in being the team they are and we’re still very much in the early stages.”

City remain in a strong position to defend all three of the trophies they won last term. Tottenham, on the other hand, are now out of all cup competitions, leaving them with just the Premier League to focus on – their last remaining hope of winning anything in Postecoglou’s debut season. While their injury list has mostly cleared, it won’t be until the returns of Son Heung-min, Yves Bissouma and Pape Sarr, once the Asian Cup and African Cup of Nations are complete, that Spurs will finally be at full strength again. Eight points adrift of top-placed Liverpool in the Premier League, their campaign resumes on Thursday morning (6.30am, AEDT) against Brentford.

Speaking of Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp’s shock announcement that he will quit at the end of the season triggered immediate speculation that they might make a play for Postecoglou, a boyhood Reds fan, to replace him. “Yeah, look, probably not the time to ask me about it mate to be honest,” he said post-match.

Postecoglou is typically not the type to leave a job unfinished, and as this encounter proved, there is much work left to do.

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