Guardiola heaps praise on Spurs
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola. Photo: PA
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola hailed Tottenham as the best team in the Premier League after they staged a late comeback to earn a 2-2 draw at the Etihad Stadium.
After a goalless first half, City raced into a two-goal advantage within 10 minutes of the restart after Leroy Sane and Kevin De Bruyne capitalised on two Hugo Lloris mistakes in the Spurs goal.
Dele Alli halved the deficit before a moment of controversy as Raheem Sterling appeared to be pushed when through on goal by Spurs defender Kyle Walker.
The incident went unnoticed by referee Andre Mariner - with Son Heung-min equalising from the resulting counter-attack. "They know when they play well because they were aggressive, but I would like to say we played well with and without the ball.
"Tottenham are by far the best when you let them play, when you let them play they are the best team in the league. They have a lot of quality in midfield players, attacking midfielders, wingers, the strikers - they are an outstanding team.
"So when we were able to play better than them today, I am so satisfied. I am of course sad because the players do not deserve that but in the future this performance will make us stronger.
"We played really good but we missed a lot of chances and when that happens you cannot win. It was deja vu. Again, (as) what has happened for the rest of the season - we create more, we concede a few, and the referees are always against (us).
"We are not going to achieve big targets this season. We are going to try and keep going and going but we create too much and we get nothing. We drew because we missed a lot of chances, the same at (the losses against) Everton and Chelsea.
"We played against Tottenham and Tottenham are a top, top, top, top team and when you make these chances then the referee doesn't matter." On the penalty incident, the Spaniard said: "He said that he pushed him. So thank you Kyle Walker for being honest."
