Pep Guardiola has been showering praise on Tottenham Hotspur despite Manchester City brushing them aside on Saturday.
Tottenham offered little going forward during the 3-0 defeat at the Etihad, with most of Spurs’ forwards feeding off scraps for the majority of the encounter.
City won the game quite comfortably to make it 16 consecutive wins in all competitions. The last team to beat them in the Premier League was, in fact, Tottenham.
Apart from Harry Kane hitting the post with a free-kick in the first half and Gareth Bale producing some exciting moments during his brief cameo at the end, Jose Mourinho’s men failed to create clear-cut chances.
However, the City boss admitted that he told his defenders before the game that Kane, Son Heung-min and Lucas Moura would be impossible to stop.
Guardiola told City’s official website after the 3-0 win: “We have clean sheets – the back four [on Saturday] were amazing.
“I said to them: ‘We will see counter-attacks and concede moments with see Kane, Son, Moura. Now, we know, forget about it and play. It’s impossible to stop them for 90 minutes.’
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“I am enjoying watching, of course. I want to finish the game with us having created more and conceded fewer [than the opposition].”
The Spaniard also stated that Spurs have ‘a special quality’ of making the most of the chances that they create which his why his side have struggled to beat the North Londoners recently.
The 50-year-old told BBC Sport: “Well deserved [win]. We concede and hit the post and sometimes this situation can turn [the match].
“Tottenham have a special quality. We have played the last two years away at Tottenham, we create a lot of chances and play good – but they have two or three chances and win 2-0.
“This is a talent, this is a quality we know they have. They don’t need anything to create chances. This is a talent, this is a quality.
“I said, ‘we are going to concede counter-attacks, they are going to have chances, but you have to be patient, patient, patient’.”
Spurs Web Opinion
The game was essentially done and dusted once City took the lead. Given the way Jose sets us up in big matches, our only chance of winning seems to be to take the lead and defend with players behind the ball. Just like against Chelsea and Liverpool, we look incapable of coming back into the game once we go a goal down.
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