Goals from Marcos Lopes, Harry Bunn and George Glendon were not enough for the Blues to register their first points of the season in a hugely entertaining lunchtime encounter at Tottenham’s Enfield training base.
The Blues travelled down to London looking to avenge their unfortunate 2-1 defeat to Fulham on the opening day – a game City opened the scoring in and dominated.
Patrick Vieira made four changes to last Sunday’s XI, bringing in Louis Hutton, Adam Drury, Olivier Ntcham and George Evans in place of Shay Facey, Seko Fofana, Albert Rusnak and Emyr Huws.
That meant that Jordy Hiwula led the line at no.9 after his goal-scoring start to the season and Portuguese youth international Marcos Lopes played in behind, with Ntcham and Sinan Bytyqi on either side.
All Belgian centre-back partnership Mathias Bossaerts and Jason Denayer kept their places and Greg Leigh again slotted in at left-back.
Bunn returned to the fold on the bench after his lengthy injury lay-off which brought a premature end to his loan spell at Crewe in 2012/13.
To say that Spurs fielded a strong side would be a huge understatement, with Brazilian international midfielder Sandro, England u21 internationals Tom Carroll and Andros Townsend, as well as Spain u21 starlet Iago Falque across their midfield.
They also included Zeki Fryers and Harry Kane in an XI packed with experience against a City team with just three minutes of first-team action between them.
Spurs scored 82 goals in 24 matches at this level last season and began their season with a 4-2 win over Chelsea last weekend, so Vieira would have been under no illusions that a tall task stood before his team.
The Blues lasted just three minutes before the home side took the lead courtesy of Tom Carroll with a strike past Angus Gunn from just outside the penalty area.
City steadied the ship and began to create chances of their own in a frenetic, breathless opening half an hour but it was the London side who found the second goal of the game after 35 minutes.
Carroll threaded a pass in behind the defence and Harry Kane converted to double Tottenham’s advantage.
The third goal of the game was looking crucial and it was City who found it on the stroke of half-time after Lopes rode a couple of challenges and lashed beyond the reach of Archer from the edge of the box.
It was a goal that showcased the team’s work on high intensity pressing during the summer months as the City midfield won back possession before launching a clinical counter raid.
Now back in the game at the break, Vieira would have been hoping that his team could get off to a better start to the second half than they did in the first.
Unfortunately, Spurs struck again seven minutes after the restart when ex-QPR loanee Townsend crossed for Falque to restore the Lilywhites’ two goal advantage.
It got worse for City three minutes later when Carroll delivered a defence splitting pass for Kane to grab his second and the England u21 striker completed his hat-trick to make it 5-1 just after the hour, getting on the end of good build-up play involving Sandro and Townsend.
It may have looked like game over but City restored some respectability into the scoreline when second-half substitute Bunn marked his return to league action with a good finish one-on-one after he won back possession himself.
On Saturday afternoon the under-18s completed a remarkable comeback from 4-1 down to draw 4-4 with West Brom and dreams of another incredible turnaround were ignited when Drury crossed for George Glendon and the midfielder fired into the top corner after controlling well to make it 5-3.
With ten minutes to find another two goals, City committed men forward but it was Spurs who grabbed a sixth courtesy of Coulthirst who slotted home after Angus Gunn made a fine save from a Bentalab header.
City’s quest for a first Barclays u21 Premier League win continues at the Etihad Stadium on Bank Holiday Monday when Everton are the visitors.
