Man of the match Kevin De Bruyne hailed an "incredible performance" as Premier League leaders Manchester City eased past Tottenham 4-1.

Ilkay Gundogan found space and headed home Leroy Sane's corner unmarked from the centre of the box to hand City the lead after 14 minutes.

De Bruyne doubled their lead after 70 minutes as he worked the ball into the 18-yard box and blasted past Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.

Five minutes later Gabriel Jesus hit a post with a penalty after De Bruyne had been brought down by Jan Vertonghen and Raheem Sterling fired over the crossbar with the rebound, but the England midfielder made amends with a brace in the last 10 minutes to make it four before Christian Eriksen pulled one back at the death.

Hailing City's 16th win on the bounce, De Bruyne said: "We know the quality of the team is very high. Every game is a new game, we want to win every game and we're busy in the next couple of weeks and mentally we want to keep going and it was a great performance.

"We are pleased with the way we are playing at the moment."

Asked about their title chances after the win sent them 14 points clear at the top, he added: "We are here to win titles, we had a great start, [but] there's still more than half [of the season left]. It's very hard, but I think the way we are going is very good.

"We want to win each game, like I said before, and we're doing a good job. Everybody who comes in, even Ilkay, who didn't play a lot, is doing an incredible job. We had an incredible game."

Dele Alli was perhaps fortunate to escape being sent off after coming down on the ankle of De Bruyne with a heavy challenge. The England international, who also caught Gundogan in the first half, was shown only a yellow card.

De Bruyne seemed hurt, but the damage was not lasting as he burst into the area moments later and blasted a close-range shot through the grasp of Lloris to double City's lead.

A delighted Pep Guardiola said: "Against a team demanding to be so intense without the ball because they play so good . . . they have good quality and they attack from behind with Harry Kane and Son [Heung-min] – but we played really good and we've beaten one of the strongest teams in the Premier League."

One of the strongest teams in the Premier League they may be, but their manager insisted the weak nature of the way they conceded the opening goal was their downfall.

"It [the opening goal] was our mistake. In this type of game, if you want to win you need to be focused and concentrate and when you concede this type of goal – and then all that happens in the game – it's difficult to accept, because it changes completely the idea.

"We're disappointed, but in the same way, you need to accept that the better team won. The positive is that we try always but the problem was that we conceded from the beginning of the game, a very poor goal, and when you play against a team like Manchester City, that is in unbelievable form, you cannot do that."