Dunne the ringmaster in City circus

IT will clearly take more than the untold wealth of oil-rich Arabs to rid Manchester City of their clownish reputation.

A typically chaotic afternoon in east Manchester saw monsoon conditions, three red cards, an unlikely comeback from ever-improving Tottenham and, when the dust had settled, yet another defeat for City, whose inexplicable inconsistency is threatening to turn their season into a relegation struggle.

At the heart of the madness, not for the first time, was Richard Dunne. The Ireland defender endured a disastrous afternoon, committing an horrendous error in the first half to gift Spurs a way back into the game and then becoming the first of Mike Dean’s red card victims after the interval.