Who is the real Tottenham Hotspur? Is it the team that's picked up five early-season losses in the Premier League, most recently and most ignominiously a 2-1 home defeat to Ipswich Town, the newly promoted Tractor Boys' only win? Maybe, but Tottenham is also, and perhaps first and foremost, a giant thorn in Manchester City's side, and Saturday's 4-0 drubbing of the reigning champions, at those reigning champions' home stadium, might be more representative of Tottenham's potential and peak, if not their consistent form.
While the score may be eye-popping—no matter the opponents, 4-0 is always notable—the three points going Tottenham's way in this specific matchup shouldn't qualify as a shock. Taking the first post-pandemic season as a convenient starting point, Spurs now have six wins against City, versus five losses and a draw. No matter the general turbulence Tottenham has faced in these past four years, the team always seems to get up for matches against Pep Guardiola's side, and Saturday was the most lopsided result of them all.
How did Tottenham do it? Simply put, it did what it has done all season against most opposition, only with much better end product. This is what is both exhilarating and exhausting about following North London's more bewildering team. How is it possible that the club with the most goals scored in the Premier League and the fourth-fewest goals against seem so mired in mediocrity, if sixth place on the table can be considered mediocre? (Perhaps it isn't, because the Premier League is tough, but also it's now tied on points with Nottingham Forest, a lovely story this season but not exactly a powerhouse.) A healthy dose of one-goal losses helps explain it; all five of the club's domestic losses were by that margin, and in all but one of those losses, Tottenham went down first. The one exception isn't more encouraging: After going up 2-0 against Brighton, the Gulls scored three goals in 18 minutes to win 3-2. These types of stumbles have made it so that Tottenham is the highest team on the table to have under-performed its expected point total so far, although not by much: Heading into Saturday's match, the club had 16 points on an xPTS of 18.51, and even after beating City, it's at 19 on 20.66.
Back to Saturday, the match felt like it would go in that floundering direction. City came into this game in desperate need of a pick-me-up. Four straight losses across all competitions, starting with a 2-1 loss to this very Tottenham in the League Cup back on Oct. 30, left City in a spin, and nothing would have broken it out of this funk like beating the team that sent it reeling in the first place. Guardiola's side came out on fire, dominating possession as is its nature and nearly scoring twice in the opening 11 minutes, both times coming just short through small misfires from Erling Haaland. Tottenham held, though, and then did what it does best: score out of nothing and deflate City's hopes.
The opener came from the birthday boy. James Maddison, now 28 and in prime form—three goals and three assists in the league entering Saturday’s match—this season, drove into the box on a bursting run, and Dejan Kulusevski found him with a inch-perfect cross that the former Leicester man volleyed near post with a soft left-footed touch:
Eight minutes later, Maddison was it again. After a miscue from City under pressure, Maddison played a nifty give-and-go with Son Heung-min, with the South Korean receiving the ball, taking a touch right, then sliding it left to the goal-scorer, who chipped Ederson to complete an eight-minute brace:
Both of these goals show what Maddison can bring to Tottenham—intelligent runs and play around the box—and also what Tottenham is built to do. Explosive and cutting plays like Maddison's provide most of the excitement and the goalscoring in Ange Postecoglou's tactical plan. When it works, as it did on Saturday, it's doubly surprising that it doesn't always work.
Unlike the aforementioned come-from-ahead loss against Brighton, Tottenham didn't let off the gas on Saturday. In the 51st minute, Kulusevski weaved his way through the City midfield, with the aid of a lucky bounce, and slotted a gorgeous cross-field low ball to Dominic Solanke. The striker, who came over from Bournemouth this summer, could have shot from a tight angle, but instead took a beat and spotted an incoming, and wide open, run from right back Pedro Porro, and the Spaniard curled the ball away from Ederson and into the far-side netting, essentially clinching the three points.
To pour more salt in the wound, Brennan Johnson made it four in the second minute of stoppage time. In total, this was a comprehensive offensive performance from, it bears repeating, the best offense in the Premier League. On the other side, it was very much a bend-don't-break situation for the admittedly shorthanded defense, as City got off 23 total shots, but only five on target and only one as dangerous as Haaland's first two tries in the opening 10 minutes.
This is the type of performance that can galvanize a side into becoming its best self, and the Premier League's upper echelon is wide open for Tottenham right now. While Liverpool won again and is comfortably eight points ahead of City at the top of the table, the rest of the top 10 are currently separated by just five points. Tottenham is four points behind City and, perhaps more relevantly for both its season goals and for local pride, only three back of Arsenal for a coveted top four slot.
Every time Tottenham has looked like it might make that leap into top-four contention this season alongside those three favorites, as well as a resurgent Chelsea and the now ever-consistent Brighton, it has tripped up. Whether it was the loss to Crystal Palace, the collapse against Brighton, or the Ipswich loss, it has been impossible to trust in Tottenham this season. Maybe that's still true; after all, this is just the club's favorite matchup at the top of the league, one it always gets up for. But beating the reigning champions, on the road, 4-0 might turn whatever black magic Tottenham has against City into a real moment of arrival. At the very least, Postecoglou now has tape evidence of how his charges can reach their optimal form, and when it's working, that form is as deadly a dance as anyone can put on in England.
