'They've got big Erling up there!' - Ange Postecoglou explains how Tottenham stifled Haaland without first-choice centre-backs Cristian Romero & Micky van de Ven

Following their best result of the season, Spurs head coach Postecoglou was brimming with pride and praise for his side, who have recently been through a rough patch of form, losing to Galatasaray and Ipswich Town in their last two outings.

With both starting centre-backs Van de Ven and Romero out through injury, Postecoglou was forced into playing a far from ideal central defensive partnership, but got just reward for the risk, as they were superb in keeping City quiet.

Two-and-a-half weeks ago, Tottenham started Radu Dragusin and left-back Ben Davies as centre-backs against Galatasaray, where they had a torrid time marking one of the world's best strikers in Victor Osimhen. Losing 3-2, it looked as though Spurs' spell without typical starters Romero and Van de Ven was set to be a painful one. Skipping forward to Saturday, the same central defensive partnership was crucial to their clinical 4-0 win against City at the Etihad Stadium, where Haaland was limited to half chances.

In his post-match press conference, Postecoglou was asked about Dragusin and Davies' fine performances, to which he replied, "Yeah, I thought they were all great. You have to be against City because obviously they've got big Erling up there, but the way they deliver the ball, the areas they consistently probe, you've got to be focused the whole time and I thought Ben and Radu were really focused, I thought Vic (Vicario) behind them was really positive as well with his positioning and the way they communicated. I thought Biss (Bissouma) was important to that.

"I think the key for us was we had to do it as a collective today. I think when you play City, you can't rely on individuals to find solutions out there and collectively, I thought we defended really well, but credit to those two guys and not just defensively, but we had to play out from the back.

"It was the only way we were going to deliver balls to the areas we wanted to and both Ben and Radu didn't shy away from that. It wasn't always easy, but they consistently were looking for the ball and looking for us to play out from the back. So credit to those guys."

Spurs will have been given a huge boost from their unexpected victory of the reigning Premier League champions, and ahead of the Christmas period, which sees them play nine games in the month of December, the morale boost from the result could prove crucial to their season. Their next game sees them host Claudio Ranieri's Roma in the Europa League.