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Spurs’ Win Over Man United Puts Pressure on Leicester

By Alexander Balano

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 14: Son Heung-Min of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates with Erik Lamela of Tottenham Hotspur after the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur at Etihad Stadium on February 14, 2016 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 14: Son Heung-Min of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates with Erik Lamela of Tottenham Hotspur after the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur at Etihad Stadium on February 14, 2016 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images) /
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Yesterday’s 3-0 win over Manchester United not only keeps Spurs in the Premier League title race, but it also puts pressure on Leicester.

With Leicester City beating Sunderland by a score of 2-0 off of a Jamie Vardy brace on Sunday, the Foxes pulled away by three points to go up by 10, prior to Spurs’ match against Manchester United. However after Spurs quickly downed the Red Devils, they set up an interesting month with five fixtures remaining.

Spurs getting a win is not only huge by remaining seven points behind — the same amount they had to make up following a 1-1 draw against Liverpool — but yesterday’s win puts pressure on Claudio Ranieri’s side to not slip up.

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It’s highly doubtful that the Foxes lose any of their remaining five games on their way to finally clinching the Premier League title, but the season is still far from over.

Leicester’s next game is against a very good West Ham United side who came away with a huge 3-3 draw to put a dent in Arsenal’s title hopes. This is the same Hammers team that beat Mauricio Pochettino’s squad on March 2nd when they won 1-0 and essentially gave the Foxes some breathing room after they drew against West Bromwich Albion the day before.

Basically, the point is, that this is not an easy game for Leicester to just roll on through because they’re at home against West Ham, a side who has posted two wins and three draws in their last five league matches.

Likewise, Tottenham can’t take Stoke City for granted after they got beat 4-1 by Liverpool yesterday.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - APRIL 10: Tottenham Hotspur players warm up prior to the Barclays Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United at White Hart Lane on April 10, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – APRIL 10: Tottenham Hotspur players warm up prior to the Barclays Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United at White Hart Lane on April 10, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images) /

The Potters are underrated and although they’ve been inconsistent recently they still hold an unbeaten record against Mauricio Pochettino ever since he took over the managerial job for Spurs. Pochettino lost his first two meetings as Spurs’ manager last season while being outscored 5-1.

This year, in the second game of the season, a 2-0 lead quickly evaporated and Stoke came back to score two quick goals in six minutes to earn a draw and leave White Hart Lane with a point in hand.

In fact, dating back to the Mauricio Pochettino’s days as the coach for Southampton, he twice drew against Stoke City to put his record at no wins, three draws and one loss in four career matches against the Potters and manager Mark Hughes.

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It all sets up for something similar, something that happened just yesterday.

And that was seeing Pochettino finally get a win over Manchester United as a manager since entering the Premier League with Southampton before joining Tottenham.

In four league meetings since the 2013-14 season, Mauricio Pochettino — ironically — drew three times and lost once against the Red Devils. It’s the exact same record that he has with Mark Hughes and Stoke City.

Now, it’s too early to say that Mauricio Pochettino will snap his winless streak against the Potters, but if he does, it wouldn’t be surprising after finally coming up with a good game plan on how to attack them.

Seeing as how they should have beaten Stoke City earlier on in the season.

But a bad penalty by Toby Alderweireld and bad defending on Mame Diouf, a player who was close to scoring a goal on numerous occasions throughout the entire game, finally got through with seven minutes remaining.

So with that all said, Spurs and Leicester both have tough match-ups ahead of them, but Leicester definitely have the tougher task in trying to beat a West Ham team who is looking to secure European football for next season.

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Again, it’s highly doubtful that Leicester will lose to West Ham, but they could likely draw. And if Spurs manage a win over Stoke City, what was once a seven point lead (if the Foxes lose) will go down to four.

If Leicester draws with the Hammers and Tottenham wins, Spurs will have a five-point gap to clear with four games remaining.

So the pressure is definitely still there for Claudio Ranieri’s side to get at least three wins to finally wrap up the best fairy tale season in sports history. Otherwise, Spurs will look to crash the party and win the title instead.

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