Pep Guardiola appeared to mock Richard Scudamore after Manchester City’s 2-0 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur, sarcastically questioning whether the Premier League is concerned that Liverpool are 22 points clear at the top of the league.

Guardiola all but conceded the title to Liverpool after the champions suffered another setback at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and he let out his frustration by appearing to refer back to Scudamore, who was the league’s chief executive at the time, saying he would like “someone to get a little bit closer to City” during an interview in August 2018. City had won the title by 18 points the season before.

“Two seasons ago there was the owner of the Premier League who said that could not happen again, it’s not good for the Premier League for City to win the title in that way, with 100 points,” City’s manager said. “Now it’s Liverpool, you have to be concerned if you are the owner of the Premier League.”

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City paid for their profligacy against Spurs. Hugo Lloris saved a penalty from Ilkay Gündogan in the first half and the game changed when Oleksandr Zinchenko was sent off for two yellow cards early in the second half. Spurs took control, goals from Steven Bergwijn and Son Heung-min lifting José Mourinho’s side four points behind fourth-placed Chelsea, and Guardiola nodded when he was asked if there is no chance of City catching Liverpool now.

“They are unstoppable,” Guardiola said. “They have a lot of points, we dropped points in the games that we played quite similar to today. Even when we played Anfield. Now it’s to try to qualify for the Champions League next season.”

Guardiola was unable to deliver an update on Sterling, who appeared to suffer a hamstring injury near the end, while Mourinho said he was worried about Dele Alli’s ankle injury. Alli struggled after being caught by Sterling, who was fortunate not to have a yellow card upgraded to a red after a VAR review.

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Mourinho also questioned why VAR took so long to award City’s penalty after Serge Aurier fouled Sergio Agüero but he was delighted with Bergwijn scoring on his debut after his £25m move from PSV Eindhoven.

“It was a good goal and a very good performance,” the Spurs manager said. “It was a very solid performance, very mature. He arrived on Tuesday so he had the week to work and to try as fast as possible to understand what we wanted from him.”