Dominic Solanke’s scorpion-kick stunner earns Spurs draw against Man City

Despite blaming the referee for the change of momentum in Tottenham’s favour, Guardiola admitted his City team had an “emotional issue” they failed to overcome after Solanke’s first goal.

Gardiola said: “I would prefer not to have the transitions, but it’s an emotional issue for the first goal that the referees concedes to Spurs and after that the momentum is difficult to control whatever happens here in England.

“We know we cannot control it all the time, of course if it was 0-3 or 0-4, but we have a lot of new players. We have to try to finish the actions a bit better but the game was well played and sometimes with long balls, second balls, sometimes you miss it.”

Guardiola brushed off any suggestion that he may be forced to prioritise other competitions over the Premier League title now City are six points behind Arsenal.

He said: “As much as the chance is there, the hope will always be there. It happens. I know that in these types of games, always in the past, there is a way to win and today it didn’t happen.

“We have difficulties for many things, but the players are coming back and I saw an incredibly good spirit with many things. Erling is already in good shape and Nico, Bernardo and Rodri in the middle give us an incredible physicality and presence that we needed.

“In the last games we were not consistent with the ball and especially without. When you concede a goal, it happens, especially when you cannot control it. That will be our lesson and once again will make us stronger and better, especially for many players in the future.”

Frank hailed the spirit of his Spurs team, who battled back from two goals behind at half-time with Solanke scoring a spectacular second goal with a scorpion kick.

“I’m happy we finally got a point out of a big second half,” said Frank. “It felt like a big point against the best team in the Premier League in the last eight years, a team competing for the title.”

On Solanke’s second goal, he joked: “It was, of course, something we worked on in training, so it went well!”