Pep Guardiola: Tottenham are by far the best when you let them play

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.

Pep Guardiola: Tottenham are by far the best when you let them play

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.

But Guardiola was in complementary mood to Mauricio Pochettino's side, while ruing his team's missed chances and having a slight dig at the match officials.

He told BT Sport: "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. So I appreciate."

Spurs boss Pochettino was delighted with his team's character as they fought back to earn a valuable point.

He told BT Sport: "They were better in the first half. It was difficult for us in the first half and we conceded a lot of chances but the second half, I think we were a little bit better and had more energy before we conceded the two goals.

"It is always important to show character, good quality and personality. We showed great character at 2-0 down against Manchester City, which is always difficult, but we believed and we always try and it was the perfect thing as it is a massive point for us."

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