A late goal from Aymeric Laporte saw Manchester City beat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 in the Carabao Cup final held in Wembley on Sunday.
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Manchester City beat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 in the Carabao Cup final held in Wembley on Sunday. Aymeric Laporte headed in a free-kick from Kevin de Bruyne in the 82nd minute to score what was the winner. The result meant that Pep Guardiola’s side have now won the tournament for the fourth straight year. They now join Liverpool as joint eight time winners of the tournament. Interestingly, Liverpool have also won the trophy four times on the trot from 1980-84. It also cements City’s status as a dominant side in this tournament in recent years. Since 2000, no team has won the competition more than them (6 times).
Despite having a Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain coming up, Guardiola picked a strong side. Interim Spurs boss Ryan Mason did the same. However, in Spurs’ case, the decision to go full strength made sense.
Spurs last won a trophy in 2008 – incidentally, the silverware lifted back then was the same tournament. But yet there remained some hope that Spurs might be able to pick apart a side that would be more focused on Europe.
Alas, any such hopes were dashed from the first minute itself.
Manchester City looked to keep the ball and when they did lose possession, they pressed Spurs high. It was no shock to see Guardiola’s men dominate the ball.
To make matters worse, Spurs looked unsure of how to play on the rare occasions they did get a glimpse of possession.
Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez posed plenty of questions for the Spurs defence, whose answers were found wanting. They could have easily been ahead had Toby Aldeweireld not blocked Raheem Sterling’s low shot early on.
Yet there was a controversial moment involving Laporte. He brought down Lucas Moura on two occasions and was only booked for the second. Were he booked for the first, the result might well have been different.
Spurs improved in the second half and did briefly succeed in pushing City back. Yet they were able to rediscover their attacking verve and find the goal when needed.
Serge Aurier needlessly fouled Sterling. De Bruyne’s free-kick was met by Laporte, who powered a header past Hugo Lloris. And that was all she wrote.
