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LONDON. — It is hard to argue that Manchester City don’t care about the EFL Cup after this, their record-equalling fourth consecutive win.
After all, nobody thought Liverpool didn’t care about it during their benchmark-setting quadruple run in the competition, from 1981 to 1984.
Also hard to doubt City’s commitment given the way they monstered Tottenham for most of this match. The 1-0 scoreline does them little justice; there would appear to be a zero missing from it.
And, yet the actions of Manchester City’s ownership last week would, without doubt, have consigned this cup to the skip.
And Tottenham, as ordinary as they were, do have one reason to feel hard done by.
Should Aymeric Laporte, the match-winning goalscorer, have been on the pitch?
Possibly not.
In the 26th minute, he got into a horrendous mess in a dangerous area, conceded possession to Lucas Moura and brought him down.
Referee Paul Tierney did not see it as a booking. He was probably in a minority there.
Still, lucky for Laporte as in the 45th minute, he brought down Moura again and this time Tierney did produce a yellow card.
These events became significant when, in the 82nd minute, and the game still by some miracle goalless, Manchester City won a corner on the left with Kevin De Bruyne.
He curled it in and Laporte was more determined than Moussa Sissoko to get to the ball first. He steered it past Hugo Lloris, and that was enough. City have now won this competition every year since 2018, and counting, except this one felt rather hollow.
Not to the 2,000 or so fans, here to see it.
They sounded as delighted as always with the success of their club.
Yet given what went before it will be some time before the wider football world can look on the successes of six clubs with any real enthusiasm.
All that can be said is that Pep Guardiola, and the players, acquitted themselves with credit. That the coach picked his best team, and the players delivered their best game.
Tottenham, and their manager Ryan Mason, were only spared embarrassment by City’s wastefulness in front of goal.
Correct that next season, and it is going to be hard to stop them.
Certainly, they are out of Tottenham’s league, super or not, and for all Daniel Levy’s pretensions. A quite incredible thing happened after 19 minutes, though. Tottenham won a corner.
No, seriously, they did. Absolutely nothing came of it. The ball was cleared, recycled, and Toby Alderweireld struck it tamely wide, but at least that was evidence of two teams competing.
Tottenham did not look like Tottenham – what is wrong with white, blue, while in response to blue, white, blue — and in the first-half they certainly did not play like any Tottenham the fans will care to remember, but that corner gave their small number of followers reason to cheer. — Mailonline.
Online Reporter