Manchester City's £343m bench shows gargantuan task English football is facing

Substitute Kevin de Bruyne’s corner kick led to the game’s solitary goal – David Klein/Reuters

At half time at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle, Paul Miller and Graham Roberts were interviewed about the FA Cup final in 1981, delighting in tales of the day when they came from behind against Manchester City to lift the trophy.

It was, a cynic might have pointed out, not the first time they had been invited on to the pitch to talk the Spurs faithful through the wonders of Ricky Villa’s slalom through the City defence to poach the winner. Though in truth, these days you tend to have to go back in time for any reminiscence about Tottenham’s silverware-seizing exploits.

But what was clear after this defeat is this: even had they been able to call on Hoddle, Ardiles and Villa in their prime, Spurs would have struggled to come back here. Not least because this City side is a somewhat different proposition from the team of Gerry Gow, Steve McKenzie and Paul Power that capitulated to Spurs at Wembley 43 years ago. Very different.

Indeed, perhaps the most telling moment in the game came in the 65th minute when the board went up informing City’s Oscar Bobb and Julian Alvarez that their participation was over. On to the pitch in their stead came Jeremy Doku (£55m), and, to huge acclaim from the 9,000 visitors from Manchester, Kevin De Bruyne (£50m).

Meanwhile, remaining unemployed on the benches of the City dugout were the following: John Stones (£50m), Jack Grealish (£100m), Matheus Nunes (£53m) and academy graduate Rico Lewis. Not to mention arguably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League, Ederson (£35m). Hundreds of millions of pounds worth of talent sitting on the sidelines, doing nothing more than watching Phil Foden deliver a masterclass in retaining possession: it is very hard to see who is going to wrest City’s stranglehold of silverware from them when they have that sort of depth of brilliance to call on.

This week, Telegraph Sport reported the City hierarchy had identified Ange Postecoglou as the man they would most like to recruit should Pep Guardiola do a Jurgen Klopp and call time on his own career. And if they wanted to tempt the Spurs manager north, they could not have done any worse than allow the moment he saw the team sheets to sink in.

It was a sobering night for Tottenham head coach Ange Postecoglou against Pep Guardiola’s team – Dave Shopland/AP

To the delight of the club’s supporters, the Australian has done an astonishing job reinvigorating Tottenham. Yet how he must envy what Guardiola has at his disposal. How he might be tempted – as he was by the difference between Celtic and Spurs – to make the step up. Not least because when it was time for him to make a change here, he could send on Oliver Skipp and Dane Scarlett.

True, he was also able to give James Maddison a 15-minute cameo to extend his rehabilitation. But even the master craftsman struggled to deliver the ball that would enable Richarlison to locate his inner Villa, or a pass that might get the best out of Timo Werner. Though that is a statement which comes with the built-in caveat that there is a best to be got out of Timo Werner.

The fact is, for all their previous struggles at the new Tottenham Stadium (Nathan Ake’s strike was City’s 102nd shot in the swanky premises, and their first goal), City remain a side that, in the heat of a knockout competition, has the knack of finding a way to win.

This may not have been them at their imperious best and the winning strike may have been a scramble of the kind unlikely to figure in any Goal of the Season competition but this is a side of such resolution, such depth, such resource they almost invariably come through.

Postecoglou and the rest of English football will be scratching their head for some time working out how on earth they are going to be stopped from cleaning up again.

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