Raheem Sterling has put Turf Moor torment behind him and Pep Guardiola's reaction spoke volumes

The biggest compliment you could pay Raheem Sterling is that Pep Guardiola was unmoved in his chair. There was a time when an unerring poacher’s finish from the Manchester City forward would have prompted Guardiola to jump from his seat in an unbridled show of emotion, but here the manager was, almost unmoved, but for the Cheshire cat grin that formed on his face as Sterling put City in front against Tottenham Hotspur with a header that owed everything to control and precision.

Guardiola’s reaction spoke volumes. It told us that he now expects Sterling to make finishes like that, that such marksmanship is becoming the norm, that this increasingly formidable 24-year-old is turning into the player he always felt he could be.

It was certainly tempting to wonder - as Guardiola turned to Mikel Arteta beside him in the dugout and mouthed a few words - if the Catalan was joking with his assistant about that time he felt compelled to substitute Sterling after a dreadful miss against Burnley at Turf Moor. That was only 18 months ago but it feels like a lifetime, in truth, even if it was a pivotal moment in Sterling’s career trajectory.

There are plenty of players who would have thrown a hissy fit after that and argued they deserved better than to be humiliated in such fashion. But Sterling’s response told Guardiola everything he needed to know about the player’s character and mindset. Sterling was harder on himself than anyone and explained to his manager that the miss was not acceptable for a player with designs on establishing himself firmly among Europe’s elite.

Indeed, of all the interesting vignettes from All Or Nothing, the Amazon documentary on the Premier League champions released last year, one of the most revealing was that scene in episode four when Guardiola and Arteta discuss the Burnley miss.

The frustration for Guardiola, of course, was that on a night when Sterling and Sergio Aguero delivered two high-calibre finishes and City played some quite majestic football, his team did not have more than two goals to show for peppering Spurs’ goal, and a couple of defensive lapses came at a price.

It was certainly one of those games that you can imagine Guardiola spending the next few days dissecting in microscopic detail and wondering quite how his side failed to win. The shot count suggested one team had run riot, the scoreline said otherwise and it is probably best not mention the words VAR and Spurs in these parts for a while.

Guardiola was still generous in his praise of his players and the huge strides Sterling has taken in front of goal must be one reason why the manager is not cursing Leroy Sane’s seven month lay-off in quite the way he might have a year or two ago.

Sterling’s hat-trick in the 5-0 thrashing of West Ham last weekend had underlined just how cool a customer he is maturing into. There was, of course, that lovely cheeky lob for his second goal but it was the finishes either side of that which would probably have pleased Guardiola the most. In the past, Sterling has looked a little flustered in those moments when he surges through and, with time to think and pick his spot, his finish was too often found wanting.

All those hours on the training field, specifically on work in the penalty area and six-yard box, are paying off now, though. His header from Kevin De Bruyne’s cross was the sort top centre-forward's score - tight angle, the goalkeeper making himself big, a small space in which to aim on the far side. You would have banked on Sterling missing it a few years ago. Not so much now.

He is getting greedier in front of goal, too. There have been occasions when he has been willed to shoot only to second guess himself and make the wrong choice by passing. Sterling has been encouraged to be more selfish and take the shot on. He was certainly not afraid to do that shortly after the hour mark when the goal opened up from deep inside Tottenham’s penalty area, although, in this instance, that was one of those moments, with De Bruyne free and screaming for the ball, when he made the wrong decision to shoot.

Perhaps those moments will require some, if not total, indulgence. When, for example, was Cristiano Ronaldo ever afraid to shoot? Sterling got 17 Premier League goals last term, one less than the season before. Watching him frequently tucking inside, close to Aguero, against Spurs, with De Bruyne providing the bullets, it is not unfeasible to think this is a player who can get near a total in the mid-20s. If he can, it seems unlikely too many games will get away from City like this one.