Premier League 2018/19: 3 reasons why Tottenham Hotspur lost to Manchester City

#3 Spurs’ lack of strength in depth shone through

Ben Davies struggled at left wing-back today

After such a titanic game on Wednesday it was clear that both teams were likely to make changes for today’s match, and while City were able to bring in the experienced John Stones for Vincent Kompany, and a pair of red-hot prospects in Phil Foden and Oleksandr Zinchenko for David Silva and Benjamin Mendy, it was Tottenham’s changes that raised more eyebrows – and largely showed the difference right now between the two sides.

Already unable to call upon the injured Harry Kane and Harry Winks, Spurs also brought in goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga, full-backs Juan Foyth and Ben Davies, and switched to a 3-5-2 formation, replacing midfielders Moussa Sissoko and Victor Wanyama with Davinson Sanchez and Eric Dier, the former slotting into the back three.

The changes had mixed results; Gazzaniga made some decent saves, Sanchez and Foyth were both generally solid, but Dier looked exactly like a man returning from quite a while on the shelf, while Davies was largely torn to shreds by Bernardo Silva for the entire game.

Only a fool would try to deny the fact that Mauricio Pochettino has done a fantastic job with his team this season, but there’ve also been far too many occasions where his threadbare squad have done just about enough to get past teams far lower on the totem pole.

Faced with the all-conquering City today, their fringe players just couldn’t do enough to rescue a point.

Spurs should probably still make the Champions League next season, and their reliance on Harry Kane is definitely overstated, but it’s also imperative that they reinforce their squad in the summer – otherwise they risk being muscled out by their bigger-spending rivals.