‘Manchester City Lost Against Tottenham Due To Bizarre Liverpool Reason’

Last year, City were defeated 5-1 on aggregate by Jurgen Klopp’s Reds after a 3-0 mauling at Anfield.

And Moreno believes that the memory of that game was still lingering at the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium on Tuesday.

Despite having the majority of possession, City were unable to create any strong chances, and saw a Sergio Aguero spurn their best chance of the game from the penalty spot.

The decision to award the spot-kick proved controversial, as the ball was deemed to have hit Danny Rose’s hand as the defender slid to block Raheem Sterling’s shot.

However, Hugo Loris palmed away the penalty, and with ten minutes from time Heung-min Son’s goal was enough to earn Spurs a 1-0 lead going into the second leg.

Moreno warned City that they will have to perform much better at the Etihad if they are to progress to the semi finals.

“It felt like Manchester City were playing with the hangover of last year’s Champions League result against Liverpool in the back of their heads,” he said on ESPN FC.

“They had that in the back of their mind and the way Guardiola approached the match was just to say ‘okay, we’ll take a draw here, or even a 1-0 loss, we just don’t want too much work in the second leg’.

“In doing so, you start to play more to not lose rather than to win.

“When you do that, you open yourself up for an opportunity to come the other way, and you lose a game where you had a lot of control.

“They had a lot of the possession, but didn’t do anything with that possession.

“When you don’t do anything with possession and you lose it in a bad area, a counter-attack opens up, that’s where Son is able to get in behind, I think it was poor goalkeeping from Ederson.

“A mistake from Delph and Ederson and you’re down 1-0 in a game where I don’t think they should have been as passive or conservative.

“The substitution of Leroy Sane and Kevin De Bruyne in the 89th minute – what are we doing?

“Unless there is some fitness issue, if you’re looking for a change of pace those are the guys you bring on with 15 minutes to go, especially when Spurs are struggling because of the periods of possession.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *