On his 28th birthday, James Maddison scored twice in the first 20 minutes as Ange Postecoglou's visitors caught out their hosts on the counterattack.

Maddison was found unmarked at the far post by Dejan Kulusevski for his opener, then exchanged passes with Son Heung-min and dinked a fine finish over Ederson for his second.

City continued to dominate possession but struggled to find a killer pass, and its hopes of a second-half fightback were dashed when Pedro Porro, who spent three years as a City player between 2019 and 2022, capped another lightning break early in the second half.

Erling Haaland clipped the crossbar but that was as close as City came to making it competitive, with Brennan Johnson completing the rout after fine work from Timo Werner, as the worst run of Pep Guardiola's managerial career continued.

Second-placed City could now find itself eight points adrift of the summit after Liverpool’s trip to Southampton on Monday (AEDT).

Spurs, meanwhile, climbed to sixth in the table, four points behind City.

Postecoglou heaped praise on Maddison after the game. 
 
"[Maddison] was outstanding," the Australian Tottenham boss said.

"You have to be against City, and Madders was great. He’s gone through a lean spell but I never doubted his ability. I thought the kind of game we were expecting would suit him.

"I thought we'd need his ability to keep the ball in tight midfield areas. I take it personally on myself if players aren't reaching their level, that’s on me to get him back up there."

It was just the third time a team won away against the reigning Premier League champion by four goals or more.

"It’s significant, when you understand the context of who we were playing," Postecolgou said. 

"I’m proud of the lads, the football we played, the resilience and discipline we showed. When you play City, they test every aspect of your game and we handled that well.

Spurs had initiated City's losing run with a 2-1 win against Guardiola's side in the EFL Cup last 16, but Postecolgou's side have also had their fair share of struggles, losing to Ipswich Town 2-1 at home before the international break. 

"It was an important game for us, the way the boys reacted [to defeat to Ipswich]. It’s easy when you’re under pressure to splinter off, but I never got the sense that would happen this week. 

"The disappointing thing over the last few games is we’ve fallen well short of the kind of team we want to be. But I've no doubt we are on the right track."