Pep Guardiola was defiant in his press conference after Manchester City threw away a two-goal lead to draw with Spurs, but he did admit his side have “difficulties for many things”.
They are the kind of things that mean City’s latest dropped points cannot be explained by the unusual Tottenham curse, which has seen them win just four of their 12 matches against the Londoners since the start of the 2021-22 season.
If there is an underlying reason for that poor head-to-head record then it may be that Spurs, seemingly no matter how much they may be struggling, relish the opportunity to hit teams on the break, and have been able to turn over City when they have been trying to find some momentum themselves.
City can be frail when they try to play their game but are unable to do so effectively, and that can be capitalised on by teams who are willing to be aggressive against them. That has been seen generally this season and specifically on Sunday.
Spurs had 12 first-team players out injured and they looked down and out when trailing 2-0 at half-time, but they were far more assertive after the break and rattled City, who themselves dropped off.
Worryingly for City, it is not just Spurs who have done this to them this season. Here are three issues that were evident on the day but in several other matches too…
They can’t control momentum
Guardiola made several references to “momentum” after the match and it was clear that City could not stop a rejuvenated Spurs after half-time.
He also talked about “the way the game here in England is being played” and how “the momentum is difficult to control whatever happens here in England”.
To some extent that has always been the case but there has been a sudden shift this season that has seen the league become ultra physical and fast-paced. Guardiola’s assistant, Pep Lijnders, explained this in a press conference on Friday where he estimated that 90 per cent of Premier League teams press high with man-t0-man marking.
“If you go long against that, so the goalkeeper tries to find the striker, old-style, if you win that second ball, it’s a chance for you,” he said. “If you lose that second ball, it’s a chance for them. That’s how the Premier League looks at the moment, and that happens at both ends, so it becomes more important to be good in the duels.”
In the first half against Spurs, City had several chances to extend their lead only for their attacks to fizzle out, but they did at least stop the counter-attacks, largely through Abdukodir Khusanov and Rodri.
In the second half, City were unable to stop the momentum, in a similar way to at Old Trafford in the Manchester derby last month (which was much worse).
“The moment they put one more player there, more long balls, they won one or two more second balls and after that they created the momentum and after the goal they had perhaps another 10 or 15 minutes,” Guardiola said of Spurs’ second-half approach.
Guardiola referred to City’s missed chances as a means to control the game, but also mentioned an “emotional” reaction to Spurs’ first goal, which he believes should have been a foul against Dominic Solanke against Marc Guehi. That kind of fragility, a word he himself used recently, is not going to help in the eye of a storm.
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“We know we cannot control it all the time, of course if it was 0-3 or 0-4, but we have a lot of new players. It’s actions, we have to try to finish the actions a little bit better but the game was well played and sometimes with long balls, second balls, sometimes you miss it. I would prefer not to have the transitions but it’s an emotional issue for the first goal that the referee concedes to Spurs, and after that the momentum is difficult to control whatever happens here in England.”
City have rebuilt their team over the past 12 months and they have done so with this new Premier League dynamic in mind. They have essentially brought in difference makers with special attributes at both ends of the pitch — whether it’s Gianluigi Donnarumma’s saves, Khusanov’s pace, the craft of Rayan Cherki or the explosive threat of Omar Marmoush and Antoine Semenyo.
That said, given the importance of duels, mentioned by Lijnders, they have signed players who are not particularly good at them. It has never been a feature of Tijjani Reijnders’ game, nor is it a standout quality for Marmoush, Savinho, Cherki or Rayan Ait-Nouri.
That said, a midfield containing Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Nico O’Reilly does offer some hope for improved sturdiness, while Nico Gonzalez is returning from injury too.
Guardiola references having a lot of new players and part of that must be the process of drilling them to add in the gritty side of the game that was probably overlooked in players like Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan, as well as Bernardo, who is still there fighting with all he has.
What we are seeing now is the process of turning those rough diamonds into the kind of plugged-in winners that kept City at the top for so long. It is why so many City games become end-to-end, and why results can often rely on the quality of their forward players on the day, as much as the duels.
They have issues in the final third
“When we could run, we could run and we could arrive to the edge (of the box), one against ones, one against ones many times and (we did) not even shoot, and in that we need to improve.”
That was another of Guardiola’s takeaways from the match and again it was an obvious factor for anybody watching, especially in the first half. City went in 2-0 up at the break after winning the ball back high up the pitch and attacking quickly, with Rodri finding Bernardo in a good area, which happened several times in the opening 45 minutes.
But the difference on that occasion was that Bernardo found Semenyo in a position where he could not miss. It would have been a relief for City at the time because after going ahead early on, there were several opportunities when they picked their way through Spurs very well (often involving Rodri and Bernardo) but the final pass went awry.
When they did create good chances, Vicario saved brilliantly from Cherki and Erling Haaland lobbed a good chance over the bar.
(Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
The Norwegian was often responsible for those final passes going awry in the first half and in the second half his influence waned, which is part of this final-third drop-off. Guardiola says he looks good physically but he did not seem to be anywhere near his best. Semenyo has started life at City well but his dribbles were often wasted, in the second half especially.
If City cannot control matches like they used to be able to, for now at least, then they need their forwards to be decisive when the games are end-to-end, and while they scored two good goals in the first half, there really could have been more.
This is what happened against Chelsea at the start of January, and they missed huge chances against Sunderland and Brighton in that period, too.
They have a real problem in the second half of games
A stat came to light on Sunday that City have ‘lost’ as many second halves as relegation-threatened Burnley (nine), and it was a very clear issue yet again in North London.
Manchester City have “lost” as many second halves this season in the Premier League as Burnley
— Daniel Storey (@danielstorey85) February 1, 2026
Reduced second-half performances were even evident in their recent victories against Wolves and Galatasaray over the past eight days, even if they did not ‘lose’ them.
As this issue was put to Guardiola by a journalist, he nodded along and admitted “yeah you’re right, you’re right”.
But he did not seem to have an answer for it, at least not publicly, as he insisted, “We played well. They had one or two free kicks from (Xavi) Simons and the rest was good. In transitions, we found the players we wanted to run. We missed a little but in the final third. But we started (the second half) really well, except one transition that Gigio saved. The rest, we started really well. The goal changed it a little bit.”
City’s struggles to control momentum and transitions, coupled with some final-third sloppiness, helps explain a lot of the drop-off on the day, but it is a curious theme that they often look completely different after half-time, especially because in the previous two matches against Wolves and Galatasaray they seemed unable to find another blue shirt for large stretches, with some poor decision-making thrown in.
This area is the hardest one to explain and the sheer amount of times it has happened during the season has to be a worry, although if City are able to leverage their attacking talents more consistently, and improve their defensive work in the duels, it is easy to see things improving across the board later down the line.
The sooner the better for City, of course.