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Pep Guardiola congratulated the “exceptional” Harry Kane after his record-breaking strike for Tottenham downed Manchester City on Sunday.
City head coach Guardiola has been a long-time admirer of England star Kane, trying and failing to bring the striker to Manchester ahead of the 2021-22 season.
The former Bayern Munich and Barcelona boss labelled Spurs as the “Harry Kane team” back in 2017, with his reference to Tottenham’s reliance on their talisman irking then-coach Mauricio Pochettino.
Guardiola opted to not repeat that back-handed compliment this time around at the risk of infuriating Pochettino, but offered his congratulations after Kane surpassed Jimmy Greaves’ 266-goal Spurs record.
“I’m not going to say the Harry Kane team otherwise Poch will be grumpy with me and I don’t want that,” Guardiola told reporters at his post-match press conference.
“On behalf of Man City, I can say congrats on this incredible milestone. He’s an exceptional player.”
While Kane broke the all-time scoring record for Tottenham, he also joined Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney in an illustrious club of men to score 200 Premier League goals.
A memorable outing for Kane was improved by Spurs holding on for a narrow 1-0 win that moved them within one point of fourth-placed Newcastle United and kept City trailing leaders Arsenal by five.
City overturned a two-goal deficit to secure a 4-2 home victory over Tottenham just last month, but Guardiola acknowledged a “different” challenge at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
“Two weeks ago we were able to come back from a more difficult result. Just 1-0 this time but different with the stadium and the interruptions,” he added.
“We started really well in the first 15 minutes until the goal we conceded. After that we played a good first half, the second half was not as good.
“There were too many interruptions and we cannot control. We had our chances against a team that defend very well.”
It marked a fourth straight away league defeat for Guardiola’s side at Spurs, with City failing to score in each of those visits for just the third time in the Premier League against a single opponent.
Guardiola has lost all five games at Spurs’ new home ground across all competitions, the most he has managed at one away venue without winning in his career.
He was unable to explain why, adding: “They defend with nine players really well. The squad is fantastic.
“I think we always play really well against them but for whatever reason, we cannot seem to win or score goals.”
