Spurs 4-1 Man City by Joel Sharples at White Hart Lane

A FLUSTERED Manuel Pellegrini stormed out of a press briefing following Manchester City’s shock 4-1 defeat away to Spurs on Saturday.

When asked if he was angry with his players, the City boss retorted: “If you want to talk about football, we’ll talk about football” and walked away after less than a minute of questions from journalists.

In the main press conference he had exuded weary resignation after two offside goals had helped condemn his side to a crushing defeat: “My mentality is to try not to have excuses for important goals. It’s part of the game and when you lose 4-1 it’s very easy to just say it’s the referee’s mistakes. Maybe some part of the goal is the referee’s mistake, but another part of the goal is a mistake of our defence,” Pellegrini said.

For Tottenham’s equaliser on 44 minutes Kyle Walker had clearly strayed into an offside position before squaring the ball for Son Heung Min, whose point-blank effort was blocked by goalkeeper Willy Caballero. Nevertheless City appeared to have cleared the danger until Kevin De Bruyne gave the ball straight to Eric Dier, who scored with a low first-time shot that went in off the post.

20 minutes earlier De Bruyne had given City a deserving lead after being played through on the break by Yaya Toure and firing past Hugo Lloris from inside the box.

Three second-half goals from Spurs then sent White Hart Lane into raptures, but after the game Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino urged his young side to “keep their feet on the grass.”

“We need to keep calm. Now after three victories in a row it’s very important for the team to believe in the way we play and our philosophy, but it’s the beginning of the season and it’s a long way,” Pochettino said.

Toby Aldeweireld headed in his first Spurs goal from an Christian Eriksen free-kick soon after the restart, and after 60 minutes Spurs were 3-1 up with  Harry Kane’s first goal of the season, an instinctive finish after Eriksen’s free-kick cannoned off the bar.

Erik Lamela sealed the three points on 78 minutes, fending of Martin Demichelis and rounding Caballero following a clever turn and cross from new signing Clinton Njie on the right wing. Pochettino’s appeal for calm will fall on deaf ears in north London this week.