Harry Kane proves Pep Guardiola right by beating striker-less Man City

“Human beings tend to venerate what finished well, not what was done well. We attack what ended up badly, not what was done badly. The thing is, despues de visto todo el mundo es listo: everyone’s a genius after the event. I call them prophets of the past. And yet they are wrong even to evaluate the process in the light solely of how it came out in the end.”

Those could be the words of Pep Guardiola but they’re not. They are those of Juanma Lillo, the man who slouches beside him in the dugout at the Etihad. You wonder whether in a quiet moment after Manchester City’s stunning defeat at the hands of “the Harry Kane team” on Saturday, Lillo reminded el jefe: “Despues de visto todo el mundo es listo”.

Not that Guardiola really needs reminding. The tendency of everybody in football – and especially football journalists – to act wise after the event is one of his biggest bugbears, and has been a running theme in many answers at his press conferences this season. It often comes up when Guardiola is asked about City’s lack of a recognised centre-forward and the failure to sign one last summer.

In the immediate weeks and months after City’s pursuit of Kane collapsed, for example, it was common for the first question after another demolition of inferior opponents to be: “Does that prove you didn’t need to sign a striker after all, Pep?” Guardiola would always respond along the same lines. “One day we’ll lose and you’ll ask me do you need a striker,” he said after a victory at Brighton in October. “I bet you whatever you want.”

Here’s hoping he kept his slip, because that question is suddenly being asked again. For many, Saturday’s extraordinary defeat could not have provided a more compelling and persuasive body of evidence that