Manuel Pellegrini’s team are finding it difficult to hack it against their closest rivals while Tottenham’s victory has made them serious contenders for the title

Manuel Pellegrini still does not get it. “We have been in worse positions,” the Manchester City manager tried to argue before this latest disappointment. “We still have three of our closest rivals to play at home.”

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Only two now, and City still await a first victory over a top six side. Pellegrini’s side can no longer hack it against their closest rivals. As Sergio Agüero put it in another unwise hostage to fortune: “If we want to win the league, we have to win against our biggest contenders. That’s what it is all about.” Conclusion: this season is not going to be all about City, whose title chance looks to have gone.

It could yet be all about Tottenham, who were arguably the biggest winners on a busy day at the top of the table. Arsenal were playing at home, after all. Manchester City away represented a defining challenge for Spurs, or so everyone said last week when the visitors to the Etihad were Leicester City. Mauricio Pochettino’s players passed the test quite comfortably in the end, though the manager admitted there might have been an element of luck about the penalty decision that set them on their way.

The first half was uneventful, unexciting even. Both sides stroked the ball around breezily but neither managed to hang on to it for more than a few seconds. There was some adventurous approach play that stopped well short of anything that might worry the goalkeepers, and what can only be described as a cavalier approach to possession, with risky passing and optimistic single touches that rarely came off ensuring an almost constant turnover and a complete lack of penetration beyond midfield.

It took a while to work out why the football was so tippy-tappy and insipid, then the penny dropped. We were not watching Leicester, with their economy of effort and voracious appetite for making the most of every upfield excursion.

Spurs play in a quite different way, gradually moving up the pitch yard by yard rather than breaking out from the back in a blur of movement. By the end of the first half they had established base camp on the edge of City’s area, but that was all. Dele Alli took up a position between City’s back four and their two defensive midfielders and kept finding space cleverly without managing to make much use of it when the ball came along.

Danny Rose, perhaps because he was not as tightly marked out on the left, was the visitors’ liveliest attacker in the early stages, getting up and down the touchline effectively and often managing to improvise when the ball came back to him off City defenders.

Rose was not attempting anything improvisational when he was involved in the game’s moment of controversy at the start of the second half, however, he was merely sending in a routine cross from the left. Raheem Sterling jumped in the air to block it, and ended up doing so with the back of his arm as he turned away from the ball. You see them given and you see them not given, but though the home crowd felt it was harsh Mark Clattenburg’s decision to award a penalty could be defended.

The ball had not merely struck an unknowing Sterling. He had moved to cut out the cross and should have been more careful. It is hard to argue ball to hand when a player has launched himself at the ball, and as Sterling was the beneficiary of the last appalling decision on this ground it might even be said that what goes around comes around.

Harry Kane’s success from the spot left Spurs with a lead to defend and City, for the second weekend running, with ground to make up against a side above them in the table. Inevitably they looked to Agüero, only to find their talisman having something of an off day.

By his standards a couple of scuffed shots over the bar either side of the interval were not promising, and when Agüero found himself with a sight of goal midway through the second half and managed to pass straight to Mousa Dembélé instead the City supporters began to fear the worst.

Enter Kelechi Iheanacho, finishing Gaël Clichy’s neat infield pass with an arrow past Hugo Lloris to set up an absorbing finish. What the first half lacked in intensity was more than compensated by an unexpectedly thrilling climax, as two evenly matched teams strove for a winner.

Unfortunately for City the script remained stubbornly the same. Vincent Kompany and Nicolás Otamendi had done well to nullify Alli and Kane for 80 minutes, indeed the former had already departed by the time the contest was settled, but a momentary lapse of concentration cost the home side when neither central defender managed to deal with a run by Alli’s replacement.

After Yaya Touré lost the ball on half way Érik Lamela ran straight at the heart of the City defence. Otamendi’s attempt to challenge the ball carrier ended up with a pass played through his legs, Kompany’s decision to hang back merely played Christian Eriksen onside.

Two home defeats in quick succession have surely ended City’s title challenge, if in fact it is possible to mount a title challenge by failing to beat any of the other teams at the top. It will be March by the time Pellegrini’s side are back in league action, by which time they may be concentrating solely on ensuring a Champions League spot.

Having proved they can do dramatic when it matters just as well as Arsenal, Tottenham definitely are title contenders. Leicester were installed as title favourites when they won here last week. Spurs doing the same might not carry quite the same shock value, but results are what count and five straight league wins at this time of the season is undeniably impressive.