Tottenham Must Respect City's Wounded Lion

This Saturday’s contest between Tottenham and Manchester City is laced through with a strange, inverted tension.

In years past, these matches were sources of dread for Tottenham fans. The gulf in money, prestige and sheer talent usually meant points were hard to come by.

Now, there’s a sense that the clubs’ relationship has flipped. Tottenham won the double over City last term by a combined score of 6-2. They followed that impressive display with a 2-0 win in October that snapped a City winning streak that had been running since the beginning of the season.

Past results alone aren’t usually an indicator of future ones, of course. Taking both clubs’ current form into perspective though makes it clear that Tottenham will arrive at the Etihad on Saturday as strong favorites.

Spurs are on a run of six Premier League wins in a row, making them the form team in England at the moment. Their 4-0 win over a tricky West Brom team last Saturday was arguably one of their most complete and — to future opponents — utterly terrifying performances to date.

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Meanwhile, City followed up a commanding 4-0 win over West Ham in the FA Cup with a wholly lackluster 4-0 loss against Everton on Sunday. Pep Guardiola is beginning to look slightly out of his depth mid-way through his first season in the Premier League.

Appearances can be deceiving, especially in football. Tottenham cannot stroll into the blue half of Manchester and simply expect their streak — both against City and in the league — to be predetermined. This is a wounded City side, though one that is far from dead.

Consider that prior to Spurs’ 2-0 win in October this very same City side looked all but unbeatable. Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling all looked set for a stunning season. John Stones looked like a wonderful signing that did that rare thing of living up to his pricetag.

What really made City standout were a new set of tactics, ones that incorporated lessons Guardiola learned at Barcelona and Bayern Munich with a few twists for good measure. David Silva and De Bruyne were converted to “false 8s” — essentially free inside midfielders who churned possession into quality chances for themselves and their teammates. The full-backs cut inside to overload the midfield as needed, while Stones and Nicholas Otamendi proved the value of defenders with decent ball control and distribution.

The results of these changes spoke for themselves. The first Manchester Derby of the season played out as an extended lesson on the value of possession and dictating play. City ended up winning 2-1, but it easily could have been a much more commanding result.

Since falling against Spurs, City simply hasn’t looked the same. Easy points get dropped, leads get blown. Teams like Everton — who have struggled themselves this season — make Guardiola look far from the living legend he’s often billed as.

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Most or all of the fundamental components of that early run remain intact however. This is still a team that employs Aguero, after all, plus half a dozen other players who cost substantially more than Spurs’ record signing. They will not continue to look so meek as they did Sunday, and there’s no better time to improve than against the league’s hottest team.

The fundamentals still make Tottenham clear favorites. Mauricio Pochettino must guard against his players internalizing too deeply the resulting confidence.

Tottenham Must Respect City’s Wounded Lion

By Ryan Wrenn | Jan 20, 2017

This Saturday’s contest between Tottenham and Manchester City is laced through with a strange, inverted tension.