Article by Daniel Grigore – Published on Sunday, 01 February 2026 22:07 / Updated on Sunday, 01 February 2026 22:22
Pep Guardiola (55 years old) commented draw with Tottenham, 2-2 after Manchester City entered the booths with a two-goal lead.
Rayan Cherki and Antoine Semenyo scored in the first half, in two phases in which Romanian Radu Drăgușin was involved, but City dropped the level in the second half.
Tottenham equalized and had a few chances to score the 3rd goal, but in the end the points were shared, one each.
Manchester City and their manager, Pep Guardiola, had a problem with the phase of the 1-2 goal, in which Marc Guehi put the ball into his own goal. Dueling with Solanke, the City stopper put his foot in front of the ball and was tackled by the Spurs striker, who was looking to shoot. Solanke's force resulted in Guehi unwittingly sending the ball past Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Hit by Solanke, Guehi inadvertently sent the ball into his own goal
Guardiola's defender blamed the tackle, but 'centre' Rob Jones did not think Solanke was fouled. Even the referee in the VAR room, Jarred Gillett, did not judge like that.
The phase claimed by Pep Guardiola in Tottenham – Manchester City: “If he had hit the defender, it would have been a penalty!”
“If a central defender does that to a striker, it's a penalty. After that, for 10-15 minutes in the second half they were in control, from the moment they started to put an extra man and win the second ball a few times.
They had 2-3 more free kicks hit by Simons, but otherwise it was good. We managed to find the players we were looking for in transition, but in the last third we lacked a little inspiration. We started the game very well, except for one counterattack in which Gigio defended [Donnarumma]we started the second half very well as well, but their first goal changed things a bit.
It happens sometimes in the Premier League, that's how it's played here. We know we can't control the games entirely, maybe only if we were 3 or 4-0, but we have a lot of new players… It's about our actions, we have to try to finish a bit better, but we played well, sometimes you lose the second ball, the long balls.
I wish there weren't all those transitions, but it was an emotional reaction to the first goal conceded, to the referee's decisionand after that it was difficult to control what followed,” commented Guardiola, quoted by the Manchester Evening News.
The result leaves Manchester City 6 points behind leaders Arsenal.
