Erling Haaland scored twice as City overtook Arsenal, putting them on the verge of clinching a fourth straight league title on Sunday
Pep Guardiola has explained why he took Ederson off after the goalkeeper’s collision with Cristian Romero: “Ederson got a kick in the eye and it’s swollen. He could not see properly. The doctor came to me and said, ‘You have to replace him.’ When the doctor says that, I don’t have an alternative.”
The manager also touched on Ederson’s angry reaction to the decision: “I understand. He wants to play.”
Thanks to his assist on Erling Haaland’s opening goal, Kevin De Bruyne moved past Cesc Fabregas to take sole possession of the second-most assists in Premier League history with 112, trailing only Ryan Giggs’ 162.
De Bruyne has now assisted Haaland 12 times in the PL since the beginning of last season, at least four more times than any other player has for a team-mate in that time.
It was imperative that Manchester City break their run of bad results at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium today in order to win the Premier League title, and that’s exactly what they did.
Erling Haaland’s opening goal was the club’s very first in the PL at the venue, coming on what was their 79th shot there.
Manchester City, meanwhile, will enter the final day of the Premier League season in first place for the sixth time in the last seven seasons, with the sole exception being Liverpool’s runaway title in 2019-20.
Each of those previous six times, City went on to win the title.
Tottenham will be finishing outside of the top four in the Premier League for the fourth time in the last five seasons, after finishing in the Champions League spots in each of Mauricio Pochettino’s last four full seasons in charge from 2015-16 to 2018-19.
Postecoglou has made some very interesting, if slightly cryptic, comments in his post-game press conference. One would be wise to assume that he is referring to the attitude around the club over the last couple of days.
“The last 48 hours have revealed to me that the foundations are fairly fragile,” said the Tottenham manager. “The last 48 hours have revealed a lot to me and that’s alright. It just means I’ve got to go back to the drawing board with some things.”
He was then pressed on whether he had noticed these things internally or externally.
“Outside, inside, everywhere,” Postecoglou responded. “It’s been an interesting exercise. It’s just my observations. You can make your own fairly accurate assessment of what’s happened.
“I understand, I’ve probably misread the situation as to what I think is important in the endeavour to become a winning team but that’s okay. That’s why I’m here.”
A very unhappy Ange Postecoglou looked towards the game’s big moments when he faced the cameras.
“It was a tight game. In the big moments, we weren’t able to capitalise and they were,” he told Sky Sports.
“I thought we were well in the game the whole time. Even at 1-0, we had a great chance to go 1-1. At the end there we were chasing the game, so they got a bit more space.”
With the score 0-0 at half-time, Opta’s supercomputer gave Man City a 55 per cent probability of winning the Premier League title, leaving Arsenal with the other 45 per cent.
