Spurs won today's early kick-off 2-0 at the Etihad thanks to goals from Brennan Johnson and Joao Palhinha.
After their impressive win at Wolves last week, today was a setback for City, though Guardiola insists he drew many positives from their performance.
He said afterwards: "I had a feeling it was a it better than the result, we start well but we missed the simple things with the ball.
"They score a goal which can happen. We had chances.
"The result is not good but there is only one way and we will find that."
Asked for his assessment of the performance, Guardiola continued: "We lost with the quality we have, individually the simple things with the ball we miss it. That is why in transitions and of course they score the second at the end of the first half it was difficult.
"We need one goal and we had chances and the penalty is not given on Oscar (Bobb) and after the chance for Erling (Haaland) and Rayan (Cherki).
"We had chances but we didn’t react well with the marking and the pressing. We knew it. Because Thomas (Frank) does it and it happens.
"We have to attract and play in different way to the way we play. The final third is really good.
"We control the transitions. The result is not good. It is a long, long way and we will learn from that."
We went to sleep
Expanding on Tottenham's pressing, Guardiola concedes they struggled to handle it on the day.
He said: "It happens sometimes against Spurs. They punish us always in that position in one action.
"But even with that, before the goal and after the goal, we slept, and many times the simple things, passes we didn’t break.
"We didn’t make our build-up because they were so narrow. We put the ball more outside and from there try to make the action. Many teams play high pressing and we have to read for that."
Asked about a return to the market before next week's deadline, Guardiola added: "We will see. We have one week with the club. We talk with the players and agents. We will see."