SUMMARY:
The first UCL game at the newly opened Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was the perfect venue for a match between two English giants of epic proportions. The game opened up with Manchester City enjoying a large sum of possession and creating a chance early on in the game due to a patented build-up constructed by the brilliant mind of Pep Guardiola. Manchester City were able to build their way into the Spurs final third using Pep’s tactic of tucking in the full-backs.
In this situation, the left center back for Manchester City, in this case Aymeric Laporte, has the ball and Tottenham would not press him if when he received the ball he had time to pick his next pass as this would be a waste of energy for them.
Although most of the passing options for Laporte seem to be cut-off, Pep Guardiola showed a tactic that he has developed to create overloads in the midfield and break lines of pressure.
City being allowed to play created a penalty chance from Sterling cutting in from the left and having his shot illegally blocked by the hand of Danny Rose prompting a penalty of review by VAR. The Sergio Aguero penalty was ultimately saved by Hugo Lloirs who sprung to his left. Eventually, Tottenham did not allow the back line of Manchester city any time to pick up their heads and play a pass, thus City stopped tucking in the full-backs and found it very difficult to get out of their half. When Tottenham would inevitably win the ball back, they broke very quickly and directly creating a number of chances, but the half ended goalless with Tottenham having more quality in their chances .
SECOND-HALF
The second half proved to be more of the same with both sides creating some chances and the game well-balanced between the two sides in a tug of war. This changed when in the 78th minute Christian Eriksen played a ball through for Son who cut in onto his left foot from the touchline and was able to sneak his effort past Ederson. The half ended with City making a few attacking changes to try to reestablish the balance in the match, but ultimately it ended 1-0 to Spurs.
GOALKEEPERS:
HUGO LLORIS: It was a solid game for the Frenchman who was able to ensure a clean-sheet for his side. Lloris was needed early in the game when his side conceded a penalty in the 12th minute from a handball. Lloris took a power step with his left foot to spring to his left to deny the mid-level shot from Aguero from the spot. It was a good height for Lloris to save it, but it was a hard penalty to read. Aguero’s body shape indicated he would strike it to the left of Lloris which often means he will swing his leg across his body and go the other way in an effort to deceive the ‘keeper. Perhaps Lloris read that Aguero would go for the double-deception and go exactly where his body shape indicated. The next significant save Lloris made was from a volleyed effort from Raheem sterling from the right corner of Lloris’ 6 yard area. Lloris got down well to his left to keep it out. It was not the hardest of shots and perhaps Lloris could have held it or parried it into a better area, but that proved irrelevant as his defenders were there to clear. Other than these to saves it was pretty uneventful for Lloris having to collect one or two crosses and allowed to play short on most occasions as Manchester City were allowing Spurs to play for most of the match.
EDERSON: This game showed much of the quality of Ederson despite conceding the goal to Son that perhaps should have been kept out. Ederson was brought into City largely on the basis that he is superb with the ball at his feet, but for most of this game he also showcased how fundamentally sound he is as a goalkeeper. Ederson was essential to the City build-up always offering an outlet to his defenders and having composure to find the free city man under considerable pressure from Tottenham. Ederson also had to make a few key interventions to deny Tottenham. In the 24th minute Ederson made a brilliant save from Harry Kane roughly 8 yards out to Ederson’s left. Kane took his touch from Eriksen’s cutback then attempted to curl one around the Brazilian. Ederson used a power set by slightly hopping and landing on his feet by the time the ball was struck while swinging his arms back to generate momentum. When the shot came, Ederson sprung to his left to parry the ball away from the goal denying Kane from close range. The other save of note Ederson made was from Son when Harry Kane played him through and the Korean attempted to catch Ederson out by taking the shot early, but Ederson was able to get down low to his right to hold it. Again we see Ederson use the power set technique before making this save allowing him to generate a good push to the ball. Aside from these saves the thing that stuck out to me was the way that Ederson controlled his area in the game. He took pressure off of his defenders on many occasions by coming to claim balls into his area. The one in particular that stood out to me was from a Harry Kane ball sent over the back line which Ederson came rushing out to claim taking out anything in front of him and putting his body on the line in the process. It was down to his starting position just outside of his 6 yard box which gave him the ability to cut out a pass that would’ve seen Dele through on goal. He took a few powerful strides and used his arms to swing and generate force to propel himself into the air and through any players that stood in front of him including his own. It was truly brave and fantastic goalkeeping. Unfortunately for Ederson in the 78th minute a shot from Son was able to sneak by him which he probably should have saved. As Son cut in from the touchline onto his left foot he stood at about the left corner of Ederson’s 6 yard box. In my opinion, this was too close for Ederson to use the power set that we talked about earlier and I believe the momentum of his feet landing while the shot is coming at him caused him to be in two minds of whether to get down with his hand or save with his foot and he ended up doing neither. I think he could have taken a step forward and set in something more like a breakaway set and reacted with his feet.
Safe Hands Review 