Sometimes in the Premier League a season can feel like it’s getting away from a football team without really getting away from a football team.
It’s happened to Manchester United as of late. Jose Mourinho, you sense, would have taken four points from away games against Huddersfield Town and Liverpool.
Based on the way in which the Red Devils started the campaign, many would suggest United were underselling themselves there. But Mourinho knows how to manage a campaign as well as any manager in the history of the Premier League. Four points would have been fine. The team would have moved on.
To take just one felt like a big blow. And in the blink of an eye, Manchester City have opened up a five-point lead—just five points, it must be stressed—at the top of the table. The grass has grown an inch or two under the feet of United.
And this weekend’s fixture with Tottenham Hotspur is another encounter in a run of matches that’ll test Mourinho’s men. Benfica follow in the Champions League in midweek before a showdown with Chelsea comes before the November international break. That feeling, the feeling of a campaign slipping through your fingers, has potential to fester here.
That could be enhanced by not only the vibrant form of their city rivals but the surge Spurs are currently embarked upon. It would appear there’s little stopping Mauricio Pochettino’s men from putting together a title charge now.
Harry Kane is scoring goals again, Wembley is beginning to feel like home and fringe members of the squad, lads who wouldn’t have been expected to feature, are in bloom. In the win over Liverpool Ben Davies, Danny Rose, Victor Wanyama, Mousa Dembele and Eric Dier were all absent from the starting XI.
The 4-1 win over the Reds and the emphatic nature of it was another step forward for this Tottenham side, who have struggled against Jurgen Klopp’s bombastic football in the past. There are more big challenges come, though; in their next five games, there are matches against United, Real Madrid, Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund.
While Mourinho’s reputation for plotting a way through these big matches is unrivaled in world football, there’s a sense Pochettino has made steady progress in preparing for these types of encounters.
At Real Madrid and at home to Liverpool there were adaptations made to both personnel and the system. And those tweaks worked. Spurs shouldn’t move away from their outstanding blueprint too often, as it’s a setup that’s destructive to take care of the majority of teams in European football. Yet some tussles, like this one, need extra nuance.
And Tottenham appears to have the tools to nullify United. The Red Devils’ No. 9, Romelu Lukaku, struggled up against the imperious Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen during his time as an Everton player, while the pace the Red Devils have on the flanks can be matched by the likes of Trippier and Serge Aurier.
It’ll make for a cagey game and the type of match you can imagine being on a knife edge in the main. But also the type of match that neither manager in which neither manager should want to settle; if the points are shared, City can open up a seven-point chasm to both sides with a win at West Bromwich Albion later in the day.
That mentality, the conviction to go for three points when one may be easily on offer, will be key for Tottenham here.
Because there’s a chance for Spurs to flex their muscles. United aren’t playing well, they aren’t coping with injury issues and there’s a sense of impetus lost; Tottenham are the anthesis.
Will those 11 men on the pitch look at one another at the start of the second half, at the 60-minute mark or with 10 minutes left when the game is level and think “we’re capable of winning this, aren’t we?”
Under Pochettino the answer has frequently been “no”, but after going to the Santiago Bernabeu and performing admirably, and after wiping the floor with Liverpool they’re in a better position to say “yes” without hesitation. And in a better position to act on that belief.
Prediction: Manchester United 0-1 Tottenham Hotspur
Tips
Tottenham to win (23/10 Sportbet)
Tottenham to win to nil (5/1 Unibet)
Total goals under 2.5 (3/4 Bet365)
Calculators
