Having flown back from Thailand to “tighten the bolt”, as he put it, Thaksin Shinawatra will no doubt try to claim the credit for Manchester City’s overdue return to form yesterday. However, it is an equally safe bet that Robbie Keane feels that this match was won and lost elsewhere.

The Tottenham Hotspur captain looked furious at being substituted midway through the second half and when City scored their decisive goal five minutes later, his mood appeared to turn darker.

Keane has been integral to Tottenham’s successful transformation since Juande Ramos was appointed head coach at White Hart Lane in October, but having made an early exit for the third consecutive match, his patience snapped. He cursed his way to the touchline, marched past Ramos and threw down his tracksuit top, to the delight of the City supporters behind him. Those same City fans were cheering again after Nedum Onuoha had headed the winning goal and Keane’s face was turning crimson as he raged silently in his seat in the dugout.

Ramos sought to play down the incident, saying that he “did not see” it, but his explanation for the substitution will not sit easily with Keane, who had put his team ahead in the first half with his 21st goal of the season. “We have a big squad and people on the bench and we need to share the minutes on the pitch,” Ramos said, suggesting that his decision to send on Darren Bent had more to do with a sense of fairness than with merit.

Even if Keane felt that Tottenham’s chances faded at that moment, Ramos suggested that his team had done enough to win the match and would have done so had two marginal offside decisions not gone against them. Ramos felt that Stephen Ireland’s equaliser in the 59th minute should have been ruled out and a disallowed Tottenham equaliser with five minutes remaining should have stood, when Onuoha put the ball in his own net. On both decisions, however, City were given the benefit of the doubt.

Perhaps that was just as well in the circumstances, given that City’s need was the greater. Whereas Tottenham have secured a Uefa Cup place next season by virtue of their Carling Cup triumph, City’s hopes have diminished as their form has dipped over the past three months. This victory followed a run of two wins in 12 Barclays Premier League matches, a sequence that led Thaksin to state the need to return from Bangkok to Manchester last week to save the club’s season. Sven-Göran Eriksson, the manager, would argue that the owner should be less concerned with tightening bolts than with loosening the purse strings as he starts planning for next season.

“He [Thaksin] has been away a long time and to have finally the chance to sit down with him is important for the club, for me and hopefully for him,” Eriksson said after yesterday’s match. “I don’t know what it [tighten the bolt] means, but it’s good to get a win on the day he comes back to see us play live. We have a lot of things to discuss.”

At least Eriksson should be talking from a position of strength when he meets Thaksin today. City could have crumbled yesterday after a poor first-half display in which a mistake by Vedran Corluka allowed Pascal Chimbonda to set up Keane for a well-taken goal, but they persevered in the second half and got their reward.

If there was more than an element of good fortune about City’s first goal, when a scuffed shot by Nero Castillo was headed on by Elano and finally converted by Ireland, possibly from an offside position, there was nothing lucky about their winning goal, a towering header from Onuoha from Elano’s corner.

“Keano, what’s the score?” the jubilant City supporters chanted before asking Thaksin for a wave. No prizes for guessing which of the two responded.

How they rated

Manchester City (4-1-4-1): J Hart 6 - V Corluka 4 R Dunne 7 N Onuoha 6 J Garrido 5 - G Fernandes 6 - N Castillo 5 M Johnson 6 S Ireland 6 Elano 6 - Benjani 6 Substitutes: D Vassell (for Castillo, 71min), F Caicedo (for Elano, 76), Sun Jihai (for Benjani, 89). Not used: A Isaksson, Geovanni. Next: Bolton (a).

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): P Robinson 7 - A Hutton 6 M Dawson 8 J Woodgate 7 P Chimbonda 7 - A Lennon 5 J Jenas 6 D Zokora 6 S Malbranque 6 - D Berbatov 5 R Keane 7 Substitutes: T Huddlestone 6 (for Lennon, 46min), J O’Hara 5 (for Malbranque, 67), D Bent 5 (for Keane, 67). Not used: R Cerny, T Tainio. Next: Chelsea (h).