Tottenham Hotspur are going to face Manchester City in a crucial Premier League match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday. Manchester City are currently in the second position in the league table with 45 points from 20 matches.
City are five points adrift of table-toppers Arsenal, who have played a match less. This means that anything less than three points from Sunday’s match will peg the Cityzens further back in the race for the league title, as Arsenal visit Everton on Saturday and will have the chance of going eight points clear before City go into the match against Tottenham.
Tottenham Hotspur, meanwhile, are fifth with 36 points from 21 matches and will want to get at least one point from the match to keep their hopes of a top-four finish alive.
On that note, we will take a look at two things to watch for in the match:
Manchester City might face some challenges against a five-man Tottenham defense:
Tottenham will start with their customary 3-4-3 formation, but it will effectively become a 5-2-3 with both their wing-backs dropping down to deal with City’s three-man attack. However, Erling Haaland, Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish might still prove to be more than a handful, with midfielders like Kevin de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva feeding them regularly.
Hence, the likes of Christain Romero, Eric Dier and Clement Lenglet will have to be on their toes. Morover, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur will have to battle it out to win back possession in the middle third with De Bruyne and Bernardo.
Mahrez, who has been in great form this season with 10 goals and four assists so far, should enjoy a great battle with Ryan Sessegnon down the right flank. Should Antonio Conte decide to start with Ivan Perisic as the left wing-back, Mahrez might have to fall back more often than he would have liked to.
Tottenham’s counter-attacks might cause City some trouble:
Tottenham, despite spending a considerable amount of time dealing with City’s attacking prowess, might trouble the visitors sporadically with their counter-attacks. With the presence of Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski, Spurs would have enough firepower to put pressure on City’s defense.
Kane will drop down repeatedly to create moves from the midfield and Son’s darting runs through the left should open up space in the final third. Pep Guardiola might think of starting with Kyle Walker as the right-back to curb Son’s influence.
Kulusevski has been in good form of late and might once again prove to be a key component in Tottenham’s attack. However, with Manchester City likely to dominate ball-possession, Tottenham’s attacks will probably be less in number.