So, odd to separate heart and head with this game. First off I enjoyed it.
Let me get this out of my system now, Trippier is our weakest link, diabolical defending AGAIN, time and time again he is the oppo target, time and time again it pays off for them.
We need better Fullbacks, whilst Davies is the better defender, just look at City's FB's far superior to ours (This includes Mendy who I thought was their worst player), they are able to get up and down the pitch all night and they can defend, ultimately nullifying our attacks (again all this despite Mendy losing his individual battles against us).
City were the better side in the first half, both teams were very physical and aggressive, but City edged it when it came to the 2nd ball, in attack they looked more likely to score than we did. The midfield was a war with both sides winning and conceding possession but it was in attack that City's quality showed. They pulled our defence about on a number of occasions.
Despite this and Trippiers diabolical defending we were always in the half and no point, apart from immediately after the scored did I think we were going to get spanked. There was a determination and grit to what we were doing, we refused to lie down.
Second half we were the better side, even though City still opened up a couple of chances, one early on they should have scored from. But started to dominate the midfield, it was still a war and both sides were aggressive but we started to win more 1st and 2nd ball. We transitioned better than them too but our final ball was largely shit.
Mentioned for Sissoko AGIAN who was excellent, Lamela, what a player he is, ran his socks off all night and was the only e=genuine threat we possessed until late Dele and Eriksen came on, gutted for him with the miss, did the ball bobble up on the pitch or was is just a miss? Shout also for Lloris, one superb save in the first half that kept us in it. Also, Winks looked superb.
So why did I start with difficult to separate from heart and head, this performance and the once against PSV have been more like old Spurs, the performance has been good. But we've ended up losing both of them. So the odd feeling continues, crap performances rewarded with wins, much, much better performances rewarded with losses (Inter, PSV and now City).
So I feel better about the direction we are going in because we are starting to play a lot better, we have Eriksen, Dele coming back into fitness is huge (both gave us a bit more bite in attack too).