By Sam Wallace a 22 April 2013 Tottenham Hotspur 3 Manchester City 1: It occurred in the space of just six minutes and 22 seconds, the time it took for Tottenham Hotspur to score three impossible targets and for the bubble to burst for Roberto Mancinias area for what will surely function as last time in 2013. They could not have managed to get much simpler for Manchester United when they had tried, since the leaders need only get at Old Trafford on Monday evening to create their 20th title standard. It can not be that City have already been intimidated into allowing their neighbours surge to the title with perhaps four games of the season since there was nothing especially daunting about Unitedas kind of late, left to perform. Rather, a familiar anxiety took grip of City and once it'd hold, there is no telling precisely how bad things could easily get for them. For many of the very first half, where they took the lead through Samir Nasri, City lived up to their billing as the type team of the month with Carlos Tevez making the Spurs support like butterfly enthusiasts in futile search of 1 challenging example. On 42 minutes when Hugo Lloris rather reached out a to stop it, an instant that Andre Villas-Boas would later recognize as essential to the day the Argentine must have scored their second target. For a good deal of the next, and much of that first half, Villas-Boas appeared as if a person considering the failure of his time. The match was ended by him having to restrain his secretary Steffen Freund from joining in the goal celebrations. Somewhere in the heart was a tactical shift that'll take pride of devote the Villas-Boas coaching dossier, and without doubt all those theses that fight for him as you of the fantastic modern coaches. On the hour, he exchanged Scott Parker and Gylfi Sigurdsson with Tom Huddlestone and Lewis Holtby and changed the game. A dozen minutes later he replaced the hapless Emannuel Adebayor for Jermain Defoe who scored the whole lot and the second was recast in the most popular imagination as a tactical masterpiece. You could say that there were precious few other options at his disposal, or that no-one would definitely be less effective at centre-forward than Adebayor, not even, say, Jake Livermore. In truth when he considered the counter Villas-Boas had several options when it came to chasing the game against the winners, but the credit is deserved by him for at least taking the plunge. It had been Huddlestone who passed to Bale for the next, and Holtby who offered Defoe for the 2nd purpose. Suddenly Spurs had come to life and, it was about time after one get inside their last seven games in most tournaments. They moved to a 4-3-3 formation and City had no result, getting on the lesser-spotted Scott Sinclair and then Joleon Lescott in a meagre make an effort to change the overall game around. It thrusts Spurs back in the heart of the intriguing three-way battle between themselves, Chelsea and Arsenal for the three Champions League places. When it is still living by enough time that Spurs visit Stamford Bridge two weeks on Wednesday, the game in hand both sides have over Arsenal, then that match promises to be an absorbing competition with therefore much at stake for both groups. As for City, at times it's difficult to see when they play as well as they did in the initial half why it's gone so wrong for them this season. In the initial 5 minutes, Jan Vertonghen made the mistake of believing he had seen off the risk from Tevez, ushering him out to the best before the City man abruptly changed course. He played in the ball is cut by James Milner who back to Nasri for a tidy finish. Nasri was fortunate that umpire Lee Mason didn't begin to see the whole scope of his poor problem on Kyle Walker seven minutes later which went mostly unnoticed on the Spurs table too. Nasri, and then Edin Dzeko, had further odds in the very first half but were unable to complete. Gareth Barry was working the midfield much as he had against Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final a week earlier, but difficulty was just nearby. Spurs had threatened only one time in the first half when Joe Hart was required to create a great save your self from Walker as he went onto a by Clint Dempsey in to the right route of the place. It had been Dempsey who obtained Spursa equaliser, a ball used the outside of Baleas left foot from the proper side. It presented itself good for tucking away at the back post, and eluded Vincent Kompany, out of sorts in the second half. Bale had started in a position behind Adebayor and struggled following a two match absence to find a place in the overall game. He looked a whole lot more efficient on the right wing. It was the ball was won by Holtby who in midfield for the second goal, driving it out to the proper channel where Defoe had taken Kompany. The Spurs man moved the ball right back onto his right foot as he carried it into the place and hit one particular harsh photographs that are after dark goalkeeper before he responds. It was Defoeas first purpose in the category since Boxing Day and by that time, White Hart Lane was in raptures and the previous confidence was flooding straight back. Huddlestone, a remarkable person in midfield, who passed the City tired well as ball, developed the 3rd goal. He noticed a of opportunity between two defenders as He was backed off by City to produce the starting and Bale raised the next lightly over Hart with the outside of his left foot. Game over for City who would probably rather get the worst of it out the way today with a United victory over Aston Villa that forms the name race once and for all and allows Mancinias group to focus on securing second place and winning the FA Cup final on 11 Might. It will hurt handy the prize right back but then this game encompassed much of the bad and the good then if they required reminding of where they have gone wrong over the last five months. Spurs: LLORIS 7/10, DAWSON 6, WALKER 6, VERTONGHEN 6, ASSOU-EKOTTO 6, PARKER 6 DEMBELE 7, DEMPSEY 6, BALE 7, SIGURDSSON 5, ADEBAYOR 4 Birmingham City: HART 6, KOMPANY 5, CLICHY 5, NASTASIC 5, ZABALETA 6, 6, TEVEZ 7,A BARRY 7, NASRI 6, Ymca TOURE, MILNER 7, DZEKO 4 Goals. Spurs: Dempsey (75), Defoe (79), Bale (82) Man City: Nasri (5) Substitutions: Tottenham Hotspur Holtby 7 (Sigurdsson, 60), Huddlestone 7 (Parker, 61), Defoe 7 (Adebayor, 71). Birmingham City Kolarov 6 (Milner, H/T), Sinclair (Dzeko, 83), Lescott (Clichy, 90+1). Bookings: Tottenham Dawson, Assou-Ekotto. Man Town Y Toure, Hart. Person of the match Bale. Match standing 8/10. Possession: Tottenham 45%. Guy City 55%. Efforts on target: Tottenham 6. Person City 4. Umpire M Mason (Lancashire). Work 36,121
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