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Kane Hurts Himself But Son Saves Spurs Thanks To City’s Indecisiveness, Delph’s Ineptitude

By Travis Yoesting April 9, 2019
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Tottenham edged Manchester City 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal.
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Tottenham’s first-ever match at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium went just about perfectly. Its second was pretty spectacular too.

Son Heung-min scored in the 78th minute to propel Spurs to a 1-0 victory over Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals on Tuesday. 

The win — and just as importantly the clean sheet — was marred by an injury to Harry Kane, who fled straight to the locker room after appearing to suffer an ankle injury in the second half. 

His injury (plus Dele Alli limping off late in the match) left a tinge of regret over what was a near perfect result for Tottenham heading into the second leg at the Etihad next Wednesday. 

City, meanwhile, failed at this stage once again thanks to some indecisiveness from Pep Guardiola and Sergio Aguero. Last year in the quarterfinals, the Citizens lost the first leg on the road to English competition, but they’re doing a bit better than the 3-0 defeat to Liverpool. 

The new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium hosted its first Champions League match Tuesday, with a bit less pre-game pomp than when Spurs hosted Crystal Palace a week ago. 

City, however, did not give any fucks about the new stadium.

“Everyone has a stadium; everyone has supporters,” Kevin De Bruyne said before the match.

City did boss most of the match, totaling 60 percent of the possession, but much of it was ineffective, placing just two shots on target. One of those shots on target was a penalty kick from Aguero. 

The match was a bit slow to get going.

The first real attempt on goal followed a nice run inside from Raheem Sterling, which sparked the game into life. Sterling’s shot was blocked and before the corner kick could be taken, VAR informed referee Björn Kuipers of a potential hand ball. Indeed, with the help of replay, the arm of Danny Rose blocked the shot inside the 18-yard box and City was awarded a penalty kick.

Sergio Aguero couldn’t take advantage, however. The City forward’s penalty attempt was tame, lacking either the accuracy or power and saved relatively easily by Hugo Lloris.

Lloris has now stopped his last three penalty kicks, adding Aguero to the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Jamie Vardy. 

Spurs’ No. 10 didn’t do much more than Aguero.

For most of his time on the pitch, Kane rammed his body into defenders, once again proving he is the best forward at fouling opponents and earning a free kick for his team. 

At one point, Kane and Fernandinho went at it like a couple UFC fighters near midfield.

But Kane’s hard-headedness, part of what makes him so important to Tottenham, proved his undoing with just under an hour gone. The England forward rushed to close down on Fabian Delph but arrived late, taking Delph’s follow-through to the ankle.

Kane immediately limped down the tunnel to be replaced by Lucas Moura.

Moura proved livelier than Kane, creating more space for the likes of Son and Alli to exploit. The end result was Son’s goal, torching the aforementioned Delph to give Spurs the win in the 78th minute.

Delph is not a great defender, but credit Son for sticking with it. 

After the goal, Guardiola took 10 full minutes before bringing on Leroy Sané and De Bruyne and in the end the attacking duo didn’t have enough time to make an impact on the match.

In the 90th minute, some clown, probably telling Delph that he needs to play better, ran onto the pitch, creating a brief delay. 

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But even six minutes of stoppage time weren’t enough for Manchester City to find an equalizer as Spurs held on like Danny Rose to Fernandinho’s face. 

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