City 0 - 1 Spurs

• They always let you down. They always let you down. One of the most infuriating aspects of being a post-takeover MCFC fan is having various football fans and pundits telling you that this is a different Manchester City, a new Manchester City, that Manchester City started on 1 September 2008 and that there is no continuity between pre and post-Robinho MCFC. Everyone who follows City knows this to be false. I hope we gave a good demonstration to the world this evening: we needed a win against a side yet to win at a top ten side this season, and we just choked.

• At least it wasn't dramatic. Those stoppage time losses to United were bad enough. To have gone through this tonight would have been too much. As painful as Peter Crouch it merely sealed what we already knew; that we were not good enough. I'm a fan of Roberto Mancini and I think he's tactically very astute but we were not near being competitive enough this evening. We can create chances against poor defences, but faced with the totemic and titanic Ledley King and Michael Dawson we had nothing.

• Our two main avenues of attack - having Carlos Tévez drop deep and run with the ball at defenders, and having the wide players sling balls into the box - have both worked against bad defences. Just remember the routs of Blackburn, Birmingham, Wigan, Burnley and so forth. The problem is that King and Dawson did not panic with Tévez charging at them. Just as they did not falter when Craig Bellamy, Adam Johnson and Pablo Zabaleta swung in aimless cross after aimless cross. With Emmanuel Adebayor typically passive we had no magnetic target in the box, and ceded possession with every attack. We had a lot of the ball, in some decent positions - but our best three chances all came from corners rather than open play.

• If you can't create chances at home you don't deserve to play in the Champions League. By the last fifteen minutes it was clear we weren't going to score. And with no goals and no win we would have to rely on Brian 'two relegations' Laws to get us into fourth. This meant that when Peter Crouch headed home he doubled Spurs' cushion but no more. And it had been coming. Our failure to deal with Crouch all evening was just shameful. It's not like Spurs have the element of surprise on their side. Whenever they were under pressure they hit Crouch from distance. He must have won every single ball, sometimes keeping it, sometimes giving to to Jermaine Defoe, but never once losing out to Vincent Kompany or Kolo Touré. He missed a golden chance in the second half, as did Defoe. Better chances than we created all night.

• It's easy to get melodramatic and downbeat. Don't. The fact is that this was a bigger game for Spurs than it was for us. This was perhaps their best chance to make the Champions League for many years to come. But the fact we all know is that eventually the weight of Sheikh Mansour's cash will be enough to break down the castle walls of the top four. I didn't think we would do it this year, and we haven't. But the spending will continue, the squad will improve and we'll be stronger for this experience next season. 2010/11 could be the season we break the siege. And if it's not 2011/12 is even more likely to be our year. Keep the faith.