Manchester City v Tottenham
Week 10 of the English Premier League saw changes up and down the table. Compared to the controversies of the previous weekend, it was a relatively calm affair. However, there were quite a few big results once again.
Manchester United were the only club in the top 12 of the Premier League table to register a win over the weekend, with West Brom adding to that tally on Monday night. In the most eye-catching fixture, United beat Arsenal 2-1 to extend their winning streak in the league to four matches. Their title rivals, Chelsea and Manchester City both drew their games against Swansea and West Ham United respectively. Consequently, seeing the Red Devils go to the top of the Premier League standings for the first time this season. Wigan caused the upset of the round by defeating Tottenham by a single goal at White Hart Lane.
This weekend serves up a SUPER Sunday with champions Manchester City hosting fifth placed Tottenham and second on the table Chelsea travelling to Anfield to face Liverpool. City and Tottenham will get things underway hoping to recover from their disappointing results last weekend. Both have important matches in Europe to contend with before this clash.
Manchester City’s dip in form in front of goal continued. City failed to score in a goalless draw away to West Ham after beating Swansea by just a single goal in their previous match. Mancini will hope his forwards can improve on that return when they face Tottenham as rivals Manchester United are looking at the top of their game. But Mancini was adamant he was happy with the current form of his English champions, who are still the only unbeaten side in the league this season and are just two points behind leaders Manchester United. He highlighted the number of chances they created against West Ham as evidence of the level of the team’s performance. “When you have so much possession and so many shots you deserve to win and we missed four incredible chances to score,” Mancini said. Their Champions League performances have been worrying as their chances of qualifying for the next stage look bleak after drawing two and losing one of their three matches before their fourth at the Etihad against Ajax prior to this match. They will receive two major boosts in David Silva and Maicon returning from injury for this match.
Too often already this season Spurs’ attitude could be captured in one word: anxious. Andre Villas-Boas invoked it again following their deserved 1-0 loss to Wigan. “Sometimes we’re just not clear in our decision-making, it can happen because of anxiety,” he said. “We try to do everything right and we end up doing everything wrong.” However, only goal difference is keeping Tottenham out of the top four. Wigan could have scored three goals in the first half, and after eventually taking the lead in the 56th minute the visitors continued to look the more likely to score, as Tottenham mustered only a few long shots and failed to find any cutting edge or fluency. With Tom Huddlestone working his way back from a long injury lay-off and Clint Dempsey and Gylfi Sigurdsson struggling to justify their purchases, the absence of the injured Mousa Dembele and the sold Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart leaves a gaping creativity void in central midfield. Spurs’ win at Old Trafford looks like a blip; their only other victories have come against the league’s bottom four and that may be a truer reflection of their present ability. On the other hand, many at White Hart Lane clearly believe that Villas-Boas should be getting more out of the resources at his disposal, notably by deviating from his preferred 4-4-1-1 to deploy two strikers. Boos resounded around the ground when the manager replaced Jermain Defoe with Emmanuel Adebayor straight after Wigan went in front.
City are unbeaten against Tottenham in two seasons and have beaten them in the last three encounters. They will also have the advantage of playing at the Etihad where they are unbeaten for a record 34 league matches, of which they have drawn only two of those since the beginning of last season. Back the champions to get back to winning ways.
