Keegan: critics can eat words

Tottenham 0 Manchester City 2

Sommeil opened the scoring when he headed home Ali Bernarbia's third minute corner, while Barton pounced on a loose ball after 20 minutes to score his first goal for the club. City might have had four or five had their finishing been better.

After some poor performances and results in recent weeks, Keegan was delighted with his team's first away win of the year and first victory at White Hart Lane since the Premier League was formed.

"We started off like a team who wanted to shove the criticism we've had back at people," said the City boss.

"My one criticism is that we got ourselves into some great positions, but chose the wrong options when we broke at times.

"We have been a bit Jekyll and Hyde this season. I don't know who is the good guy, Jekyll or Hyde, but for about five weeks we have been the worse of the two.

"I told the lads that some of the criticism has been justified, but the one thing they shouldn't be criticised for is looking like a team whose season has finished that's a terrible thing to say about one of my teams.

"I said I can't keep defending them, but today they came up with the right attitude and we had the right balance in the side.

"We caught Spurs on an off day and we are only two points behind them now, and three of our four remaining games are at home.

"We must finish as high as possible because the difference between finishing just outside the relegation places or in the top half can be £2.5m and you mustn't under-estimate the importance of that with the state of the game at the moment," he said.

Spurs were booed off the pitch by their fans at the end of both halves and manager Glenn Hoddle felt the fans' frustration was justified.

"I am very disappointed with the way we performed, particularly in the first half, and I am scratching my head to see where that performance has come from.

"We played well at Leeds last week and won here against Birmingham before that, but we were on the back foot from the first minute. It was a poor performance and we couldn't shake ourselves out of it.

"I expect the fans to boo after a performance like that. We have to be honest, we didn't give them value and they are justified to be disgruntled the supporters want success and their frustration is a build-up of 20 years without any of that," he said.

TOTTENHAM: Keller, Carr, Taricco (Perry 45), King, Gardner, Anderton, Bunjevcevic (Toda 45), Poyet (Acimovic 72), Davies, Sheringham, Keane.

MAN CITY: Schmeichel, Sommeil, Jensen, Distin, Dunne, Benarbia, Foe, Wright-Phillips, Barton, Fowler (Macken 81), Anelka.