Finally, it happened. After five games 100 shots, two penalties, open goals and millions VAR decisions Manchester City scored a goal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The Mancunians have had many more beautiful strikes sail into Spurs’ net in other fixtures against the North Londoners, but few had the significance of Nathan Ake’s bundled 88th-minute effort.
His goal ended a hoodoo that has plagued the Citizens since Tottenham Hotspurs’ shiny new stadium opened five years ago.
Before the Friday night FA Cup game, the record was 0 wins, 0 ties and 5 losses, but all the more embarrassingly it also featured 0 goals for City.
Ake’s solitaries strike put all that to bed and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
After a mere four games in January, Manchester City gets back to playing twice a week for the majority of February.
The intensity will not let up after that. Should the club progress as expected in the Champions League they face another congested schedule in March when the Treble winners face Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Brighton.
It will be a brutal run and, as Pep Guardiola alluded to in his postgame comments, comes at the time when the season’s silverware will be won or lost.
“Now in the second part of the season if we lose we lose competitions, in the FA Cup, Premier League, Champions League, we know how strong all the teams are,” he said.