MANUEL’S MEN HEAD IN WRONG DIRECTION

WHILE Bacary Sagna was reflecting on Manchester City’s inability to be ‘killers’, Manuel Pellegrini was in another part of White Hart Lane and about to throw a tantrum. The City manager had been asked about his post-match address to the players when he snapped. ‘What happened? We lost 4-1,’ said Pellegrini. ‘That is the most important thing. I am angry, I am not angry. No more questions? OK.’ He stormed off only to be told he was going the wrong way down the corridor and would have to return past that same group of reporters. ‘If you want to talk about football, we talk about football,’ he said on his way back. ‘But if you want to talk about stupid things, then I do not answer stupid things.’ Except it is not stupid to wonder how he would talk to his players after a game like this, which City led through Kevin de Bruyne before being blown away by goals from Eric Dier, Toby Alderweireld, Harry Kane and Erik Lamela. ‘We should have killed the game,’ said Sagna. ‘We conceded that (Dier) goal just before half-time, but it’s not the reason to come back sloppy in the second half. ‘We had to keep some composure and we didn’t have it. We were too nice, we lost too many duels and we have to be killers. ‘Maybe we have shown too much confidence. We have to keep working hard if we want to stay on top.’ City were not helped by awful officiating but were also undermined by back-line errors. Meanwhile, any anxiety for Kane seems to have evaporated with his first league goal this season. ‘Maybe I shut up a few people,’ said the Spurs striker. ‘When you score like last season it becomes a drug and, when someone takes it away from you, you want to get it back. It was a good feeling to score again.’