Tottenham 1-5 Man City: City too slick for Spurs

Manchester City substitute Stevan Jovetic scores their fourth goal. Picture: Jamie McDonald/Getty

Scorers: Tottenham - Capoue (59); Manchester City - Aguero (15), Y Toure (51 pen), Dzeko (53), Jovetic (78), Kompany (89)

Spurs was City’s 18th win in a 20-match unbeaten run in all competitions, which started with a 6-0 demolition of the same opponents in November.

Just four minutes were on the clock when Sergio Aguero struck the post and, in the 15th minute, he latched onto a David Silva through-ball to direct past Hugo Lloris.

Remarkably, it was the Argentina international’s seventh goal in five appearances since returning from a calf injury and one he looked likely to add to until he limped off late in the first half.

Spurs thought they had levelled when Michael Dawson turned in a Christian Eriksen free-kick – only for the goal to be chalked off for offside.

Spurs went down to ten men when Danny Rose was controversially sent off for taking down Edin Dzeko in the box.

Yaya Toure slotted home the resulting spot-kick and City extended their lead in the 53rd minute, with Dzeko netting.

Sherwood’s men did pull one back through substitute Etienne Capoue, but City struck again through a replacement of their own, Stevan Jovetic, and captain Vincent Kompany to head into February top of the pile.

Afterwards, Kompany refused to talk about the Premier League title despite another goal-laden display. The Blues have now scored five on eight occasions this season and their overall tally is up to 115, but Kompany does not think the title is a given.

“I don’t even want to talk about that at the moment,” he said.

“I’m so happy with the win and the way we played, not just the result. We are enjoying it and it’s a great time to be part of things.

“There is still no silverware, a lot of games are to be played. We’ll stay calm and prepare for the next game.”

It wasn’t all positive for City, though with Aguero’s injury a potential blow.

“It’s bad news of course, we will have to see, we don’t know how bad it is but hopefully he’ll be back very soon,” Kompany added.

“The good news is Jovetic stepped up and was the player we know he can be.”

Kompany’s view on the title was shared by his manager.

“I think it’s too soon to be the favourites to win the title, there are much more matches to play but if we continue the way we are playing we are going to have more chances,” he said.

“In the first half we played some fantastic football, scored just one goal but had three or four more chances. We also defended very good.”

On Aguero, he added: “We will see tomorrow with the doctor. It’s possible it was a consequence of him playing 90 minutes [against Watford at the weekend]. We hope we can recover him as soon as possible.”

Sherwood felt the Rose sendomng off was the wrong decision but, like Pellegrini, believed City were the better team.

“He did the play the ball,” said Sherwood. “[Referee] Andre [Marriner] got it right, the linesman jumped in and made a decision for him. It was unfortunate because it’s hard enough 11 v 11 against City.

“We weren’t as good as them and there were some poor, poor goals.”