Pep Guardiola One more season will continue without the impossible poker of titles in England. The combination of Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup It will continue to be a utopia for the Spanish coach, who this Wednesday let the least important title slip away by losing against Tottenham Hotspur (2-1).
For the fourth consecutive year, Guardiola ‘passes’ from the League Cup, a trophy that he has already won for four years, and he warned about it in the preview. “I will play with the B team,” confessed the Sampedor player, who started three homegrown players, surrounded by starters such as Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden, Ruben Dias, John Stones, Nathan Aké and Rico Lewis. It wasn’t as ‘team B’ as it seemed.
Even so, Tottenham, who always give City a hard time, went 2-0 up after 25 minutesa true rarity for the ‘Sky Blues’.
With two goals, very different, too, the first was the culmination of a counterattack on the right side, launched by Archie Gray, followed by a backheel from Brennan Johnson and catalyzed by Dejan Kulusevski, who transported the ball to the area and gave it to him. He put Timo Werner to shoot Stefan Ortega. The German finally made his debut as a scorer this season.
The second goal once again featured the assist signature of Kulusevski, but this time the Swede only had to give it to Pape Mate Sarr in front for the Senegalese to place a beautiful threaded shot next to the post. Viewing the replay from behind, it would not have been surprising if Ortega thought the ball was going out, because he took a spectacular screw.
With 2-0 and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium vibrating, City closed the gap at the end of the first half’s stoppage timewhen Matheus Nunes finished off a Savinho cross at the far post.
Nunes, until not long ago a residual player for City, has two goals and one assist in his last three games. Savinho, for his part, hurt his ankle badly in the second half and had to leave on a stretcher in tears, joining City’s injury list, which includes Rodrigo Hernández, Kevin de Bruyne, Jeremy Doku, Jack Grealish and Oscar Bobb.
The 2-1 was a short result for Tottenham and they resisted Guardiola’s team for 45 minutes, but the reality is that the one who had the chances to make it 3-1 was Ange Postecoglou, since Stefan Ortega avoided goals from Kulusevski, Johnson and Richarlison.
The Brazilian, a few minutes from the end, should have killed the game, but was unable to finish alone in front of Ortega after a faulty throw-in by Gvardiol.
Already in injury time, YVess Bissouma takes a point-blank shot from Matt O’Reilly on the goal line and Tottenham will be the one in the next round of the League Cup, once again dreaming of a title that ends a drought that has lasted 16 years and dates back to Juande Ramos’ triumph in this same competition in 2008 .
City will continue for another year without title poker and without what was once their fetish competition and which they won uninterruptedly between 2018 and 2021. The ‘Sky Blues’ will continue, at least, two titles behind Liverpool, ‘king’ of the League Cup.
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