A typical change of heart by a journo....

A few weeks ago, Andy Dunn wrote this:

With the temperature going south towards zero, Pep Guardiola took off his overcoat, hung it on the back of his seat and got back to technical area business.

Dele Alli had arrived unaccompanied to head Spurs back into meaningful contention and Pep, in Manchester’s midwinter chill, was feeling the heat.

For sure.

What followed might just have been the most important half-hour - so far - of Guardiola’s embryonic Premier League career.

He knew it and his team blew it.

He knew anything other than victory from a position of two-goal strength would be nightmarish proof that this City side lack steely resolve.

Capitulation after Alli’s familiar nod would ratify their softness.

Panic would spread from here to Abu Dhabi.

You can tick all three boxes.

Pep’s City is now in an almost-permanent state of psychological vulnerability.

After their dreamy start to the season, this is a team that has failed to mentally cope with the vagaries of form and fortune.

Plenty of important people will want to know why.

What they will have to accept is that, with 16 matches remaining, City’s Premier League ambitions for this season will be restricted to top four hunting.

In truth, assuming that Chelsea take care of Hull City, that will probably be Tottenham’s realistic challenge.

Spurs showed a certain amount of resilience, scored with their only two attempts on target and might even have fancied an unlikely steal.

Yet that is a storybook from which Guardiola is probably tired of reading.

In a way, this was reminiscent of the home defeat to Chelsea back at the beginning of December.

It is easy to forget they performed with chance-creating fluency for large chunks of a loss that was a psychological dagger-twist.

That fluency returned for lengthy spells against Spurs yet the outcome was only a notch better than it was against Antonio Conte’s team.

The underlying problem is that there is hesitancy and anxiety about Guardiola’s all-singing, all-dancing attacking unit that has clearly been fostered by certain reverses.

And after Marriner’s inexplicable brain-fade, no-one around the Etihad was surprised when Son guided in the leveller.

Probably not even Pep.

In an almost tragicomic finale, there was still time for a Gabriel Jesus tap-in to be ruled offside and Guardiola to fall to his knees.

The overcoat went back on but Guardiola is feeling the heat.

Today, he glows over Pep:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/once-pass-master-arsenals-arsene-9832455

It's Arsenals turn to be battered by the Journos. They wont be happy til Wenger walks