PEP GUARDIOLA wants a reaction. From his Manchester City players, from the Manchester City fans, from the whole organisation.

The Catalan manager’s post-match comments following his side’s 4-2 victory against Tottenham Hotspur last night were among the most passionate he has given.

His press conference was full of honesty about previous work, recent successes, and the current state of the team. If it has the desired reaction it could be a big moment in this season’s Premier League title race.

Despite it making for a good storyline, above all, this was a motivational speech, not for the media, but for his players and the City fans.

Words that may usually only be spoken and expressed in such an emotional way in private, were now out there for the world to read and hear.

“I want to a reaction,” Guardiola admitted. “I want a reaction from all the club, all the organisation. Not just the players, the staff, everyone.

“We are a flowers team. A happy flowers organisation. I don’t want to be a happy flower. I want to beat Arsenal.

“But if we play that way Arsenal will destroy us. Will beat us. Will beat us.”

The Manchester City fans were encouraged to bring what they can to games for the rest of this season in order to help players rediscover a hunger for winning.

“We are missing passion, fire, and a desire to win from minute one,” Guardiola said in an interview with Sky.

“It’s the same with our spectators, with our fans. They are silent for 45 minutes. They booed [at halftime] because we were losing, but we didn’t play badly.

“Maybe it’s the same as the team, maybe they are comfortable after winning four Premier Leagues in five years. After we scored a goal they react … yeah, but that’s not the point.

“We need them. I want my [our] fans back. My fans here [at home]. Not my away fans, my away fans are the best, but my fans here.”

Guardiola has no issues with the quality of his players or the quality of their performance as footballers.

After all, they came back to win this game 4-2 after going in at half-time 2-0 down.

Spurs boss Antonio Conte said one of his sides has never conceded so many goals in one half of football for as long as he’s been a manager.

“It’s not about the way we play and the quality of the players,” continued Guardiola.

“Are you going to challenge the quality of players? I love them. They are fantastic players. All of them. But there are details. It comes from the success we had.

“We have to admit it. We had a lot of success. People say no, it is not a success because we didn’t win the Champions League — bullshit. We won a lot.

“In this country? Two back-to-back [titles] in the way we played? The consistency? Against this Liverpool? What a success.

“That is normal, but we have to look at ourselves, it’s not enough.”

Despite reiterating how proud he was of previous successes, Guardiola insists that something more than top-quality football played by top-quality footballers is needed to continue that success and challenge Arsenal at the top of the Premier League this season.

“We have the problem that we have four Premier Leagues in five years and Arsenal have two decades without a Premier League,” he added.

“[For Arsenal] every game, every ball — not every game, every ball — every action is there,” he emphasised. “We miss it. We don’t have it.”

Guardiola’s post-match comments in some ways explain his team selection against Spurs. It was an 11 full of new-ish signings and young players.

Star players such as Kevin De Bruyne, Joao Cancelo, Bernardo Silva, Aymeric Laporte, Ruben Dias, Kyle Walker, and Phil Foden were all on the bench.

The idea could have been that because the players in the starting lineup had not won as much with City as those on the bench, they would be more hungry and motivated in what was a key game in the title race and against a top-six, Champions League side.

Guardiola was suggesting the whole club needs to emerge from a kind of comfort zone — the players, the fans, and everyone involved at City.

It is an interesting proposition for a club that already has everything and has the resources to have more, but still, that is not enough.

Success in sports comes not only from money, resources, plans and facilities — even though these things put City in a position to challenge — but turn challenges into wins there needs to be desire, motivation, and togetherness. And this is what this post-match performance was all about finding.

Guardiola occasionally demonstrated this through noises rather than words. The press conference was staccato in its nature but was also a lengthy composition.

The words themselves were impromptu and un-arranged, but the overall message was clear.

“We played well, yes but [gesticulates audibly]? We don’t have it,” he said. “In football, it’s not just about playing good or bad, or the skills. It’s something that has to be inside all of us.”