City will face newly-promoted Norwich City in their next fixture while Spurs will travel to the Molineux for a tricky fixture against Wolves.
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It was far from an ideal start to the season for Manchester City and Pep Guardiola. The defending champions fell to a narrow 1-0 away defeat against Tottenham Hotspur. Guardiola was quite disappointed at the result as he acknowledged Spurs to be quite a difficult rival for his team. It was even more frustrating for the City manager and fans as they have so far spent a substantial amount of money in the summer transfer window in order to strengthen the team. City did dominate proceedings in the opening 20 minutes of the game but Spurs gradually came into the game and snatched the winner through Heung Min Son.
“Spurs are a tough rival for us,” the City manager said.
“I always have the feeling we are good when we play here, but we cannot get the results. You see the stats every time we play here. Apart from the first season at White Hart Lane, we were really good. But stats are stats. It’s not easy to control. You lose the ball and they make transitions, they run really well with the ball. Moura runs and they make you defend 40 meters behind. We lost simple balls in the parts of our process which we can’t do if we want to be stable as a team,” he added.
Despite the loss, the Spanish manager did acknowledge that his side did a good job in the opening minutes of the match.
“The intention was quite good. We arrived many times. We are one against one a lot. But in the end, we could not dribble, shoot and score goals,” Guardiola said.
“But the way we started showed me the team is there. We played with personality. Now it’s training and preparing for the next one. We did everything to win. The players have 90 minutes in the legs and we know have another week to prepare for Norwich. Hopefully, players can come back step by step,” he added.
For Spurs manager Nuno Espirito Santo, it was sheer jubilation on opening day. His team had beaten the champions of England. Nuno praised his side for leaving it all on the pitch and going beyond their limit in what was a fantastic result for the north London side.
“That was the idea, going beyond your limits, and I think everybody saw this today,” he said after the match.
“The boys go beyond. The fight, the discipline, the way they commit themselves was very good. This is what we have to do every day of our lives. We are starting, it’s the beginning, the first official game of the season, and we have to recover. Now we go to Portugal (Pacos de Ferreira in the Europa Conference League on Thursday evening), and we think about the next one. Now, what’s important is tomorrow, the commitment of recovering well and preparing for the next game,” the jubilant Spurs manager said after the match.
City will face newly-promoted Norwich City in their next fixture while Spurs will travel to the Molineux for a tricky fixture against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
