Manchester City showed how far they've come in beating Tottenham in their own backyard

When Mauricio Pochettino was manager of Espanyol he was once described as the ‘anti-Guardiola’ for the way that his pressing football was kryptonite to Guardiola’s Barcelona. Here in England he has taken immense pride from his record against Guardiola – notably the four points Spurs took from City last year – and the way his teams play aggressive, expansive football with a fraction of City’s budget.

This season City have finally built a team to get the better of Pochettino, completing here their second heavy defeat of Tottenham this season. This might sound like a smaller detail in a bigger picture, but it does explain why they are about to win the Premier League.

Last season Spurs steamrolled City at White Hart Lane in October, producing a level of physical power Guardiola was not used to. At the Etihad, Spurs rode their luck but took their chances and came away with a 2-2. After Spurs had flattened City home and away the previous season, it was a record to underline Pochettino’s achievement: building the team that could beat the richest club in the country.

So what has changed? The weight of City’s spending and the depth of Guardiola’s coaching has taken them to a level where, despite recent stumbles, they can outplay almost any team in the country. That happened when City beat Spurs 4-1 in December but this game, away from Manchester, was a bigger test, a clearer answer. And there was absolutely nothing that Spurs could do about it.

Watching Spurs get dominated and passed around for almost all of the first half, it was difficult to remember when this last happened to them at home. Remember how impenetrable White Hart Lane was in their final season there, and the 17 straight wins they left it with. Even this season, in Wembley exile, Spurs had won seven straight before getting picked off by Juventus in their last game here, more than one month ago.

This is a team that wants the ball and the initiative in every game they play. Even Manchester United, Liverpool and Real Madrid have come to Wembley this season and been blown away by Pochettino’s great white machine.

And yet here Spurs could not get a foot in the game or a touch of the ball for the first 40 minutes. When did they last get shown up by their guests like this? Monaco here in the Champions League in September 2016? Borussia Dortmund in the Europa League at White Hart Lane six months before that? Certainly no-one in domestic football in the last few seasons. Pochettino’s pride and Spurs’ power simply do not allow it.

The problem Spurs had is the same one that City have faced against Liverpool: a team that is built to dominate and attack cannot always simply switch to having to defend, track and chase. Because they are not used to it, and because it plays with their mentality of domination and control.

So it was here with Davinson Sanchez. He has been a revelation for Tottenham this season, defending on the half-way line, playing the Pochettino way with aggression, speed and an unshakeable confidence. And yet his high-risk high-wire style, and his own lack of experience at this level, means he stumbles badly when put under pressure. He was caught out by Gabriel Jesus for the first goal, by Raheem Sterling in the build-up to the second, and by each of them again in the second half.

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You might argue that if Pochettino swallowed his pride and picked the out-of-favour Toby Alderweireld then Spurs might be more solid at the back in the biggest games. But then Pochettino’s whole success at Spurs has been built on unity, hunger and ambition and if he were to rip up his own rules then he would only be undermining himself. This is not a club that can pay its players whatever they want, and Pochettino has to manage accordingly. Which makes his record here even more impressive.

And Tottenham were not blown away in the end, as it looked in the first half like they would be. Christian Eriksen gave them a foothold in the game just before the break and they started to put the pressure on City early in the second half. Mousa Dembele started to win loose balls in midfield and it briefly felt as if Spurs might inflict the same second-half chasing that Manchester United and Liverpool recently gave City.

Of course that is not how it went, although the fact that Guardiola made three defensive substitutions, and finished the game in a 5-4-1 with Raheem Sterling leading the line, is a credit to how worried they were about Tottenham, and how dangerous this team is.

There will be a more important test for Spurs here against Manchester United this time next week, an FA Cup semi-final that will define far clearer how far Spurs have come. United will not even try to cause any of the same problems as City either, will not dominate the ball or control the game. But the fact that City did this to Spurs, playing around them in the first half, holding them off in the second, in the most important game of their season, for the first time of the Guardiola tenure, shows why they are imminent champions. Beating Pochettino’s Spurs here like this is not meant to be easy.