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Kevin De Bruyne's absence again leaves question marks over Pep Guardiola's Champions League plan
Once 31 minutes passed at Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium, Manchester City were already three goals better off than they had been at Anfield this time last year and Hugo Lloris had saved Sergio Aguero’s penalty.
So there would have been strong grounds on which to argue City manager Pep Guardiola had learned the lessons of last season and that his team selection and tactics were in many ways vindicated - if they had just held on.
But Heung-Min Son’s late goal, together with the fact he beat makeshift left-back Fabian Delph to score it, once again left question marks over Guardiola’s Champions League approach.
Too direct or, in this instance, too cautious, it has been some time now since Guardiola got it just right on a big Champions League night. His last victory in a quarter-final or semi-final away leg was in 2011, when Phil Foden was still at junior school.
Make no mistake that Guardiola set up to stop Spurs, as he preferred Ilkay Gundogan over Kevin De Bruyne and the German international started in a holding two with Fernadinho.
It was strange to see two City midfielders so often behind the ball when their team were in possession during the first 45 minutes and Delph barely ventured forwards at all.
This was only Delph’s third start of 2019, the others coming against Burton Albion and Swansea City, with Benjamin Mendy not even among the visitors’ substitutes, and it showed when Son turned inside him to beat Ederson.
City lost their last Champions League quarter-final in the opening 31 minutes against Liverpool and Guardiola, dating back to his time with Bayern Munich, has history for seeing his team beaten in Europe during short, emphatic bursts.
It was, therefore, understandable that he wanted his side to be more cautious this time around. Despite Aguero’s penalty miss, one sensed he would have been largely satisfied with the goalless scoreline, if not necessarily the performance, at the break.
But City were not entirely convincing in terms of stopping Spurs. Nicolas Otamendi, preferred to John Stones, forever looked on the brink of making a mistake. And former Tottenham right-back Kyle Walker remains a weakness, as proven when Danny Rose nutmegged him on his way to winning a corner.
Walker was caught too far up the pitch when Moussa Sissoko got away on the left, but Dele Alli volleyed his cross over the bar. Harry Kane also missed a good first-half chance for the hosts.
De Bruyne’s presence on the bench meant Guardiola and City had a potent weapon to use and way of changing the dynamic of the team. But, bizarrely, he waited until the 89th minute to use it and it was too late.
Antonio Conte famously employed a rope-a-dope tactic to beat Tottenham in the 2017 FA Cup semi-finals, sending on Diego Costa and Eden Hazard from the bench to win the game against Mauricio Pochettino’s tiring team.
Guardiola had hinted before kick-off that De Bruyne and Leroy Sane could have important late roles to play against “Tottenham’s physicality” but there was no knockout punch from City, who themselves got floored.
Raheem Sterling tested Lloris with a low shot early in the second half, but Guardiola had not altered his formation or personnel for the restart.
Son provided a couple more warnings, first with a shot that curled just wide and then with an effort that Ederson had to save, before Kane was forced off with an ankle injury suffered when he made a late challenge on Delph.
Even with Kane off the pitch, still City seemed content to try to hit Spurs on the break rather than trying to dominate possession or press high up the pitch and still it looked unfamiliar to Guardiola’s team.
Rather than calling for De Bruyne or Sane, the Spaniard’s first change was to send on Gabriel Jesus in a like-for-like swap with Aguero.
How Pochettino must wish for such options from the bench. He had sent on Moura, rather than Fernando Llorente, to replace Kane and did not look to have a winning card to play from his substitutes.
Victor Wanyama, Ben Davies, Juan Foyth and Davinson Sanchez all have their various merits, but none of them are game-changers. Pochettino largely had to hope that the players who started could keep going.
Keep going they did and Son finally broke the City resistance with 12 minutes remaining to give Tottenham a precious lead going into the second leg. Guardiola, it seems, is still searching for the right formula in Europe.