Haaland's Spurs winner offers exciting glimpse of City's future, says Pep | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola described Wednesday’s 1-0 triumph at Tottenham as a ‘really important win’ and said the manner of Erling Haaland’s winner offered an exciting glimpse into City’s future.

Fit again and restored to the starting line-up after missing the last two games, the Norwegian struck in decisive fashion on 12 minutes to register his 20th Premier League goal of the season.

He latched onto Jeremy Doku’s inviting cross and drilled home an instinctive first-time finish that ultimately proved decisive.

Haaland thought he had wrapped up victory late on when he had the ball in the net again only for referee Jarred Gillett to rule the effort out for handball, a decision upheld after a lengthy VAR check.

Nevertheless, it was a crucial win for City, moving us back into the top four – and the boss was quick to acknowledge its significance as well the exciting potential of our young attacking line up.

“In the second half we suffer but we should have closed it in the first. But for Champions League qualification, it was an incredibly good result for us,” Pep reflected.

“Eddy was good. The defending was good, Ruben and Khusanov was extraordinary, Josko and Matheus again and in the end a good result for us.

“For sure [the goal] it’s the future. We have a young, young team.

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“The three up front is the future. Nico when Rodri come back will be the future. Khusanov, you have seen it today and Josko is young.

“Bernardo, Gundo and Kevin and the other ones are still really important. It's a question of time and new acquisitions we will do in the summer have to lead the club for years.”

Aside from Haaland’s strike, City also carved open several other excellent opportunities to add to our lead in what was an impressive first half display.

However, we had to withstand periods of Spurs pressure after the break with player of the match Ederson making several key saves, the most notable a brilliant block to deny Son Heung-min five minutes from time.

The boss said the second 45 minutes was a timely reminder of the need to never drop our guard.

“We were better in the first and they were better in the second. 1-0 2-0 3-0 that should have happened because of the chances,” Pep added.

“Never ever can you stop playing. Always you have to play and make long actions. Teams play so high it can happen.

“Always it's a lesson when you stop to do it, anything can happen. This season after we draw or lose the games many, many times and hopefully we can improve.”