Manchester City v Tottenham Hotspur: Premier League – live!

45 min: Spurs can’t get out of their final third. They’re desperate to hear the half-time whistle. They’ll need to get through an extra two minutes.

43 min: And once again, City nearly punish Spurs after hypnotising them with their metronomic football. The ball’s suddenly slipped down the right for De Bruyne, who from the byline pulls back a pinpoint pass for Gundogan, rushing into the Spurs box. Gundogan meets it first time, and is inches away from passing the ball at speed into the bottom right. That would have been picture pretty.

42 min: City continue to stroke it around the middle of the park. Spurs are being made to do a lot of running here.

40 min: Lamela slips a long pass down the left, nearly releasing Kane. Ederson comes to the edge of his box to claim. Inches in it, but he gets to the ball ahead of the striker, and still inside his area to boot. Kane doesn’t look happy, claiming for something that presumably makes sense in his imagination. He’s just frustrated. It’s not about Ederson, is it.

38 min: Bernardo Silva dances down the right and wedges a cross into a packed box. Easy pickings for Lloris. But the visitors are being run ragged again, after that brief mellow interlude. Such a strange rhythm to this match.

36 min: De Bruyne sashays down the inside right, past Sanchez, leaving him spinning like a teenager after three cans of warm Special Brew. He’s clear in the box, with options in the middle. But he’s uncharacteristically foolish, slashing a wild shot high and miles right of the target. Spurs were in all sorts of trouble for a second there.

As quick as a flash, City move up a gear. Bernardo Silva slips a ball down the right to release De Bruyne into space. De Bruyne flashes a low cross to the near post, where Aguero gets a yard on Alderweireld and flicks into the bottom right! Clinical. City lulled Spurs into a false sense of security there. Hypnotic.

34 min: City try to regain some control. They stroke it around the midfield for a while. Baby steps. Then suddenly …

32 min: It’s all a bit scrappy at the moment. Such a contrast to the first 20 minutes, when City were so slick. Mauricio Pochettino will be delighted with his team’s response to falling behind.

30 min: Spurs have certainly woken from their early-match slumber. They’ve enjoyed nearly 60% of possession since City scored the opener. Sometimes teams need a shock to get going. “I don’t want VAR to start giving pens for such pathetic contact as that one, or the Tammy Abraham one in the Super Cup the other night,” opines Chris G. “So if they don’t, bravo I say, whilst conscious of the fact that I would never say ‘bravo’ out loud.” You’ll get no argument here. VAR says it best when it says nothing at all.

28 min: Ndombele slides in on De Bruyne and concedes a free kick 35 yards out, in a central position. Danger here. But City don’t make the most of the opportunity, instigating a lame game of head tennis in the Spurs box. Eventually Laporte, of all people, waves a leg at a loose ball and sends it looping towards Lloris.

26 min: Nothing comes of the corner. Winks runs off down the right wing on the break, and is cynically tugged back by Sterling, who is booked for his sauce.

25 min: Sterling skedaddles down the left and plays a ball through the six-yard box. Sissoko is on hand to slice out for a corner, with Bernardo Silva lurking. Sterling has Walker-Peters on toast.

So, obviously, out of nothing, Spurs equalise! In strange super-slow motion as well. Ndombele wins the ball in the centre circle and lays off to Lamela, who is allowed to stride smoothly towards the City box. Lamela takes an early shot, opening his body and passing it past an extended Ederson and into the bottom left! Simple as that! A fine finish, but where on earth did that goal come from? And why were City so passive?

22 min: That had been coming. A couple of bursts upfield apart, Spurs have been second best from the get-go. Illustrating their malaise, Harry Kane has only touched the ball on four occasions.

This is such a sweet goal, yet so simple. Bernardo Silva dribbles slowly down the right, then checks and rolls a pass back up the wing for De Bruyne, who whips a vicious cross towards the back post. Sterling, rushing in, meets it with a glorious header, flush, sending the ball back across Lloris and into the right-hand portion of the net. What a move, what a finish. They’re not bad, this lot, are they?

18 min: Rose takes another age over a throw. This time his stalling is so egregious that referee Michael Oliver is forced to come over and issue beneficial advice. If there’s any more of this, expect the yellow card to come out.

16 min: Spurs have another drive at City. Aguero is bullied off the ball deep in Tottenham territory. That allows Kane to zip down the middle at great speed. He slips a pass wide right for Sissoko, who chips to the far stick for Lamela. A header’s sent goalwards, but it’s a harmless looping effort. At least City now know they’re in a game.

15 min: Spurs haven’t done much in attack so far. Eriksen tries to address that with a determined dribble down the middle. He nearly successfully plays a wall pass off Lamela; had it come off, he’d have been scampering into the City half with Kane for company. But Lamela can’t quite cushion the ball back to his team-mate. Better from Spurs, though.

13 min: In fact, that tangle looks more like a penalty every time they show it. VAR, huh, kids.

11 min: One corner leads to another. From the second, Lamela dances with Rodri, who goes down. He’s after a penalty kick. He’s not getting one, even though Lamela’s arm was around Rodri’s neck. You’ve certainly seen them given, but the VAR isn’t interested in overturning it. It would have been soft, but it was probably a spot kick. I guess they’ll be falling back on the “clear and obvious” get-out.

10 min: De Bruyne, Gundogan and Sterling wreak havoc down the left. They very nearly open Spurs up with some cute triangles, but the last pass is deflected and a corner will suffice.

8 min: City look lively, but then when do they not? Sterling has a shot that’s blocked and deflected out for a corner. Then after a quickly taken set piece, De Bruyne tries to thread one into the bottom right. Lloris claims. Spurs are doing their best to weather the storm, but they surely can’t go on like this.

6 min: Zinchenko and Sterling combine again down the left. And once again Sterling is flagged offside. It was close, though. The Spurs back line are playing with fire. “It’s good to hear that Sky are still finding new and exciting new ways to entice me to leave the TV off until kick off,” writes David Flynn. You mean the MBM alone isn’t enough?

5 min: Sterling nearly gets past Walker-Peters, as he twinkles down the left. Not quite. But City are coming at Spurs from all angles. The visitors have barely had a touch in these early exchanges.

4 min: City continue to pass it around relentlessly. Zinchenko nearly releases Sterling down the left, but the City winger mistimes his run and the flag goes up.

2 min: Rose takes a while over a throw, deep in Spurs territory. Clever move. Spurs started in a shaky fashion, they could do with finding their feet. And breathe.

City get the big match underway! It’s not long before Bernardo Silva and De Bruyne are working their way down the right, forcing Alderweireld to hack clear. Then Sterling nearly gets onto a long pass down the left, but he’s ushered away from danger just when it looks as though he’ll latch onto the ball. A couple of statements of intent within the first 55 seconds or so.

The teams are out! A cracking atmosphere for the first game of the new season at the home of the treble-winning champions. They wear their famous sky-blue shirts, while Spurs

sport their trademark lilywhite
are in second-choice dark blue. Or is that purple? You get the gist. We’ll be off before you know it!

Sky Sports have had a chat with both managers. The main takeaway: Pep Guardiola has changed his line-up because he wants to give all his squad a run-out. “I want everyone involved. I want to see the players. We need everybody. If the players don’t play every game it could be two or three weeks without a game. I need to see them.” By contrast, Mauricio Pochettino has opted for his strongest side without any considerations regarding rotation. “It is so important that we pick the best starting XI. City love to dominate the midfield but we are strong there.”

This is the second Saturday night match on Sky Sports under the new TV contract. And for some reason they’ve decided to stick with the wholly unnecessary innovation of sending pundit Jamie Redknapp out onto the pitch during the warm-up to take “a closer look” at a couple of the players. Last week it was Tanguy Ndombele, with reference to footage he’d already seen in the studio; this week it’s Rodri, who was busy doing stretches 60 yards away. The long and the short of it, pretty much, is that the speck he sees in the distance is a “big unit”. Yes, well, this segment doesn’t work, does it. Having said that, it’s only a matter of time before poor old Jamie takes a loose one right in the clock, just like his old dad before him. It’s inevitable, and a possible reason why the producers are happy to keep this one going.

The champions make four changes to the team named for the 5-0 win at West Ham last Saturday. Sergio Aguero, Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan and Nicolas Otamendi come in for John Stones, David Silva, Riyad Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus.

Christian Eriksen returns to the Spurs starting line-up after coming on as substitute to turn around the opening-day fixture against Aston Villa. Lucas Moura makes way, the only change to Mauricio Pochettino’s side.

Manchester City: Ederson, Walker, Otamendi, Laporte, Zinchenko, Gundogan, Rodri, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Aguero, Sterling.
Subs: Bravo, Gabriel Jesus, Silva, Fernandinho, Mahrez, Joao Cancelo, Foden.

Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Walker-Peters, Sanchez, Alderweireld, Rose, Sissoko, Winks, Ndombele, Lamela, Eriksen, Kane.
Subs: Vertonghen, Dier, Lo Celso, Gazzaniga, Lucas Moura, Skipp, Davies.

Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland).

Domestic treble-winners Manchester City versus Champions League runners-up Tottenham Hotspur. It’s fair to say this is a big one. We might only be nine days into the new season, but as both teams have designs on the Premier League title, this qualifies as a proper six-pointer. Sniff if you like, but there it is.

City will be confident of making an early statement in their quest to join Huddersfield Town, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United as three-peat winners of the English top division. As if sticking five past West Ham at their own gaff wasn’t enough. They’re currently on a 15-game winning streak in the league, and are on a four-match winning run against this evening’s opponents. They’ve beaten Tottenham seven times in their last nine visits. And Spurs have a dismal record against the top clubs of late: just seven points against the other members of the self-styled Big Six last year.

On the flip side, that four-game winning streak of City’s is a league-only affair. It doesn’t include the Champions League quarter-final bedlam between the two sides last April, two matches that fair took the wind out of City’s continental sail, and briefly threatened to derail their Premier League campaign, as Pep’s men huffed and puffed to a one-goal win over the same opponents three days later. So Spurs are unlikely to feel too overawed, despite the overall picture.

But they’ll need to perform a lot better than they did during those Christian-Eriksen-free minutes against Aston Villa last weekend. Can they raise their game and give the champions a fright? Or will City keep on keepin’ on? We’ll find out soon enough. It’s on!

Kick off: 5.30pm BST.