Pep knew this was a test of their bottle... & his City boys passed it with flying colours
FORM is temporary and you know the rest. The knocks came rat-a-tat, the class remained.
Pep Guardiola had been rumbled, apparently, his delicate Manchester City side sussed, reports of their greatness exaggerated.
That might still be the case, but that debate should be a footnote to the headline story.
And that is that City are going to win the Premier League title playing a consistently bewitching brand of football.
They were certainly nowhere near their most spectacularly fluent here but, at times, still made Spurs look more ordinary than they are.
In English football’s grandest arena, the champions-elect found a practical edge to go with the daring that has not deserted them, even in those three defeats.
Not only that, they showed they had a bit of character.
As Christian Eriksen scurried to retrieve his fortunate goal from Ederson’s net just before half-time, Guardiola screwed the cap back on his water bottle and took dead aim at the deck.
He knew the ramifications, knew the test his Manchester City side would now face for the remainder of the game.
Freshly familiar with surrendering a two-goal lead, the memory of their collapse against Manchester United painfully vivid, this was a test of their bottle. They passed it. Maybe for once in their
beautiful Premier League season, the performance did not matter to Pep.
Maybe what mattered was how they resisted a decent Spurs fightback, how they dug in, how they showed some mettle, demonstrated they have the character to go with the quality.
Maybe what mattered was getting a break here and there – as they did when Jon- athan Moss decided Hugo Lloris had clattered Raheem Sterling just inside, rather than outside, the area.
Maybe what mattered was sending on a defender for an attacker, Nicolas Otamendi for Leroy Sane, and seeing it pay off.
Maybe what mattered was persistence, the sort shown by Raheem Sterling whose secondhalf goal sealed matters and whose finishing takes Guardiola to new levels of frustration with every passing game.
Maybe what mattered was showing they could come through adversity and still, in swathes of the game, play with panache.
The title really is a formality now and it will be wonderfully won – a dazzling, opening half-hour was testament to that.
It is not as though City had been particularly poor during the three-game implosion.
They did not have the rub of the officiating green in the games against Liverpool and Manchester United, and the fine margins of finishing rarely favoured them.
Despite the three goals – the clinical finish from Gabriel Jesus, Ilkay Gundogan’s penalty and, finally, Sterling’s clincher – they were not overly clinical here, either.
If Sterling dares to count up his shots-to-goals ratio over the last two weekends, it might not make pleasant reading.
Yet he had a fine game, just like he did when he wasted chance after chance against Manchester United.
It seems bizarre to say it, but that is the case.
Sterling has got 17 goals in the Premier League this season, a tally he would probably have taken at the start of the campaign. There is still an awful lot of improvement left in the young England star. That is the frightening thing.
There is an awful lot of improvement left in the Champions-elect.
They will recruit in the summer for sure. The defeats by Liverpool, in particular, will have convinced Guardiola of the need of that.
For now, though, a title will be wrapped up pretty soon and the talk of Pep being rumbled will quieten.
And for now, Guardiola can reflect on what will probably go down as one of his most satisfying days in charge at City.
A day when they showed bottle to go with the brilliance.
City were nowhere near spectacular, but still made Spurs look ordinary