Tottenham were at their brilliant best last weekend; they needed to be as they were up against Manchester City. The Premier League table leaders had made a fantastic start to life under Pep Guardiola. Playing a similar style of passing from the back, Guardiola’s City has been pretty much unstoppable this season. Apart from the passing game, City also placed a lot of emphasis on winning the ball quickly from the opposition. They were hit at their own game by Spurs, who worked relentlessly to get the ball off the opposition.
Former Arsenal defender Paul Merson reckons that Spurs may have just shown the way to play against Guardiola’s team and he would not be surprised to see other title rivals follow the same technique in the forthcoming games. City’s biggest game of the season so far was the Manchester derby at Old Trafford. They came out with flying colours after a 2-1 win, but the gameplay by Spurs highlighted the tactical mistakes made by Jose Mourinho.
Of course, Spurs do have an excellent defence, which has conceded just three league goals this season, and it formed the basis of their win against City. Even with a mediocre defence, teams will fancy that they can get something against City if they work hard. Merson says that Guardiola will have to find a solution soon, as the Premier League is much more competitive than the La Liga or Bundesliga. So far, José Mourinho is the only manager to prevent Guardiola from winning a league title and he has done so only once. It shows the scale of competition that the Catalan has come up against in his career
Meanwhile, Merson thinks that the result will give Spurs a lot of confidence going into the rest of the season. He said:
“I fancied Spurs to get something and they thoroughly deserved it. They were outstanding.
“The title race is wide open again because I think other teams will look at that and try to copy what Spurs did. You can’t let City roll it out and play from the back.
“You have got to press them high. They will keep on playing, take chances and lose it, and they will get punished.
“This isn’t Spain where you can get away with it. The tempo is higher. Teams will look at City now and they won’t fear them quite as much.”
He believes that it would be wrong to write off the North London outfit, who have not put in a significant investment like a Manchester City or Chelsea, after their fantastic start to the campaign. Last season, the club finished in the top three but they missed out on the league title due to poor form in the last few weeks of the campaign. It has been attributed to the high intensity shown by Spurs during the early part of the campaign.
It is likely that Spurs will have tired spells during the latter part of the campaign especially if they progress in the Champions League. For the time being, Spurs will be focusing on the upcoming game against West Brom after the international break. Key games against the likes of Leicester City and Liverpool are also around the corner.
