Manchester City 2 Tottenham 1:SVEN-GORAN Eriksson is due to meet Thaksin Shinawatra today to give a progress report on Manchester City's season and at one point yesterday it was easy to imagine their tete-a-tete being construed in some quarters as crisis talks. The team were losing, the crowd was restless and the atmosphere was reminiscent of the bad old days when Stuart Pearce complained that this stadium had the acoustics of a library.

But then something changed. Just before the hour, Stephen Ireland turned in City's first goal in 374 minutes of play and suddenly Eriksson's men were invigorated. The supporters rediscovered their voice and Nedum Onuoha rose superbly to head Elano's corner past Paul Robinson for the first goal of his City career.

The game had been turned upside-down and the fans behind Joe Hart's goal turned to the directors' box, where the former prime minister of Thailand was seated amid a posse of bodyguards wearing dark suits and 007 earpieces. "Thaksin, Thaksin, give us a wave," they requested and this little man, with his unconvincing smile, rose to take the acclaim.

On the back of a stirring comeback, his talks with Eriksson promise to be far more relaxed than if, as had looked likely at half-time, Tottenham Hotspur had completed a league double over City for the fourth successive season. "It shows that our spirit and morale is still there," said Eriksson. "Plus it shows the players have not given up in terms of qualifying for Europe."

Few would have backed City to defeat Juande Ramos's team once Vedran Corluka's mistake had allowed Tottenham to take the lead through Robbie Keane's 21st goal of the season.

Corluka was horribly to blame, completely misjudging an attempted interception to let Pascal Chimbonda amble forward, and slide the ball into Keane's path. Keane obliged with a stylish left-foot finish, yet this was not a day he'll remember with fondness.

When Ramos curtailed his afternoon in the 67th minute it provoked a fit of pique. Keane had been one of Tottenham's brighter players and this was the seventh time in the last eight games he had been substituted. His response was to gesture angrily before stomping past Ramos and throwing a training top to the floor.

"I didn't see that," Ramos said. "But it's normal. Players want to play and they're disappointed when they are brought off. But it's a squad game. We have a big squad and from time to time we need to rest players who have had a lot of minutes.

"We were so much in command," he said of the first 45 minutes. "Maybe our players thought the game was won before it was."

His complaints extended to the match officials as Ireland was marginally offside when he turned in Elano's knockdown for the equaliser. The mistake was exacerbated late on when, from a free-kick, the flag was raised against Dimitar Berbatov, who seemed inactive as Onuoha, under pressure from Darren Bent, turned the ball into his own net. "It should have been 2-1 to us," said Ramos.

But by that stage Thaksin and his associates were toasting a win that stops the rot at City.