What City could have got: Kane grabs late Tottenham winner

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — No wonder Pep Guardiola once branded Tottenham the Harry Kane team. No wonder Manchester City pursued repeated bids to sign him, only for Tottenham to rebuff them.

Failing to bring Kane to the Etihad Stadium could have cost City its title defense this season after a twist to the title race engineered by the England striker.

Gallingly for City manager Guardiola, Kane saved his most complete display of an underwhelming season for the visit to the Etihad Stadium with the final flourish coming in the fifth minute of stoppage time on Saturday. Just when City thought it had rescued a point through Riyad Mahrez’s penalty earlier in added time, Kane pounced with a header to capture a 3-2 victory at the home of the Premier League leaders.

There had already been a perfectly weighted pass from Kane that released Son Heung-min to set up Dejan Kulusevski for the opener after four minutes. Then the England captain restored Tottenham’s lead in the 59th minute after İlkay Gündoğan’s equalizer.

There was frustration when Kane put the ball in the net again only for the goal to be scrubbed out by a correct VAR offside decision in the 74th minute.

But in a tenacious performance, with effective pressing beyond his scoring contributions, Kane was pushing to the end. So when Kulusevski whipped a cross into the penalty area with the full time whistle approaching, Kane got himself into space to nod into the net.

No wonder Tottenham wanted far more than the 100 million pounds ($136 million) City was offering last August, and even that might not have been enough to sell Kane.

City had looked like it was cruising to its title defense. Now the 15-match unbeaten run is over. Liverpool is only six points behind with a game in hand and with a meeting between the front-runners still to come in April.

This was a significant result for Tottenham for very different reasons, ending a three-match winning streak to go within four points of the Champions League places. It has two games in hand on fourth-place Manchester United. Antonio Conte wants to be winning titles with Tottenham, but just making the top four will be an accomplishment.

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