Harry Kane puts Pep Guardiola and Man City into unchartered waters in Liverpool FC title fight

It was a terrible Saturday evening for the “no title race” and “City are turning this into the Bundesliga” mob.

People spouting that rubbish have really rather irritated Manchester City fans over recent weeks, so there’s a silver lining of sorts to the pulsating and bizarre 3-2 defeat to a Harry Kane-inspired Tottenham.

As Pep Guardiola normally does after such setbacks, he said his team did “good”, noted that they “arrived many times” and observed how difficult it is to play against a deep-lying defence.

It was nevertheless alarming to see City looking so frequently vulnerable to the counter-attack - a relative flaw that has not looked like this much of problem at any time since the Champions League final defeat to Chelsea last year.

There were other parallels to that gutwrenching defeat. City were unpicked by a well-drilled side playing 3-4-3 and with elite capabilities on the break. Also, Guardiola reshuffled his front six - Bernardo Silva starting at false nine against Spurs as opposed to in midfield - in a manner that resulted in his defence being more exposed.

The manner of the loss, with what looked like a salvaged stoppage-time draw becoming a stoppage-time defeat as City’s normally peerless capacity for game management completely deserted them, is something that could have a sapping and lasting effect. The days that follow will be key for Guardiola and his staff in terms of managing morale.

However, this is a seasoned squad of champions and none of the problems that reared their heads on Saturday were anything particularly new. They may not have seen them for a while or in such a dramatic combination but they know how to deal with them.

What is new is the situation in a reignited Premier League title