Tottenham Hotspur V Manchester City Betting

Tottenham Hotspur V Manchester City

Saturday, 14th August – 12:45 GMT
LIVE on Sky Sports 3

Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham fans were in celebratory mood at the end of last season when a Peter Crouch goal at the City of Manchester stadium was enough to seal fourth position at Man City’s expense. But just a few months later and the club find themselves in a bit of a predicament heading into the new season, with manager Harry Redknapp yet to even sign his first player in the summer transfer window while his opposite number has spent nearly £100,000,000. Have the tables turned or will Spurs remind the Eastlands club that a successful, winning side cannot be purchased overnight?

It was an accurate Peter Crouch header which ensured Tottenham Hotspur would be the fourth and final English entry in the UEFA Champions League this season, with Spurs subsequently drawing a Swiss opponent in the form of Young Boys in their third round qualifying tie, but even the lanky England international looks unlikely to play an integral part in Saturday’s affair following on from his well publicised infidelity issues with model Abbey Clancy. Crouch is no John Terry and it’s unlikely Redknapp will risk fielding a player whose mind will be all over the place right now, so a player which has attracted a fair share of media attention over the summer could start Saturday’s opening game of the Premiership season. Robbie Keane’s future at White Hart Lane has been in doubt ever since the club decided to send him out on loan midway through the previous season, but the Irishman had been in impressive form during pre-season and Redknapp has generally based his starting eleven selections on form. Jermain Defoe, who scored the goal which helped England progress from their group at the World Cup in the summer, should be a definite starter as he looks to better the 18 league goals he scored last season.

With a lack of summer signings, you could almost hand-pick the Tottenham team yourself. It’s worrying that a manager of Harry Redknapp’s calibre, one who has built up a respectable reputation when it comes to purchasing quality players on the cheap, hasn’t been able to lure the players he wants to Tottenham. Redknapp is fortune enough to have an embarrassment of riches at his disposal but it’s unlikely he’ll enough quality in reserve to remain competitive throughout the whole of the season especially if he wants to challenge in the Champions League as well. Like it or not, Redknapp will need to bring in some reinforcements sooner or later, in attack especially, as while Jermain Defoe proved a ruthless finisher last season, the form of Robbie Keane, Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko came in drips and drabs and the aforementioned cannot be relied upon to score enough goals regularly.

This is a huge opening game for Tottenham, who will feel another victory over one of their rivals for fourth spot this season would be another huge mental boost. But the team hasn’t really taken any great strides forward since the end of the previous campaign, more or less remained halted, and it remains to be seen whether the same group of players can continue to improve as they’ll need to this season when you consider that Liverpool are almost certain to better their abysmal seventh place and City, with more fire-power and defensive cover, are likely to pick up more than the 70 points Spurs accumulated.

Manchester City

With the amount of cash which has been shelled out on players over the last year or so, Manchester City should, and are expected, to challenge for the Premier League title. At least that should be how it works when your starting eleven is worth somewhere in the region of £200,000,000. A team revolution which began with Mark Hughes bringing the likes of Carlos Tevez, Gareth Barry and Emmanuel Adebayor to Eastlands has been amply complimented by Roberto Mancini’s summer picks of David Silva, Yaya Toure, Alexsandar Kolarov and Jerome Boateng. But in spite of sheer velocity of cash spent on the new look Man City team, are they really genuine title contenders or merely Premier League pretenders?

We feel it’s fair to say that Manchester City were poor and well below when finishing fifth in a season where the door for Champions League football was left well and truly open due to Liverpool’s inadequacies. Back then City’s team would have been valued at well over £100,000,000 and yet they still found themselves a million miles off the title pace and not even good enough to seal fourth spot, where their opponents on Saturday snatched the final Champions League berth from right under their noses with a 1-0 win right in front of the City fans. That defeat will have left a bitter taste in all the mouths of City fans, but it was the fact they still weren’t up to top four standards which will have concerned every pundit in the land and alerted the Man City hierarchy that the team still required a lot more investment if the club wished to be world-beaters within the next couple of years.

So once again a Man City manager was handed a blank cheque book and told to go shopping, although hopefully the board put their foot down when it came to camp Italian scarf’s – It’s a no-no in the Premier League, Mancini. The former Inter Milan coach began as he meaned to go on by shelling out a reported £10.4 million on German left-back Jerome Boateng, with Wayne Bridge’s City future now seemingly in doubt. That was a relatively cheap piece of business compared to what followed, with David Silva and Yaya Toure quitting the Spanish La Liga and opting to join the English Premier League for what they claim to be ‘football reasons’ but what actually are money reasons, with the Ivorian Toure on a staggering £200k-a-week deal. Between them they cost the club in excess of £50 million, but a further £16 million was spent on another full-back in Lazio’s Kolarov taking the club’s net spending just for this summer to over £78 million. That’s pocket change to the mega-rich City owners, who I hear are ready to swoop for two further money-grabbers in the form of Inter Milan’s temperamental Mario Balotelli and Aston Villa’s want-a-way midfield James Milner. Where does the carnage stop?

If I’m being completely honest, and this isn’t because I’m a supporter of one of their rivals for fourth spot this season, I’m not at all impressed with Mancini’s summer recruits. I would probably make an exception for Jerome Boateng, who was one of Germany’s most reliable and dependable players at the World Cup in the summer and has put in a number of good shifts whenever I’ve seen him turn out for his former club Hamburg, Germany. However, I cannot justify the amount spent on David Silva who, from what I’ve seen of him, plays in drips and drabs and Yaya Toure, who on no planet is worth nearer the £30 million City paid for him, as well as the £200K-a-week deal he is on. I could recommended a handful of better defensive midfielders that Toure, Mascherano for starters who is cheaper and more destructible, and that’s what could potential happen to Man City if their big money signings don’t deliver this season, self-destruct, as the board of directors will be expecting an instead return for their money, with a top four finish paramount and some silverware imperative.

Manchester City is quickly turning into the English equivalent of Real Madrid, where a manager will be sent packing should a regular supply of trophies not be delivered to Khaldoon Al Mubarek’s door come the end of every campaign. So you could say a winning start is almost as important and pivotal as winning some silverware this season, as were City to lose to the same team which beat them to fourth spot last season wouldn’t that be the early writing on the wall? Either way, we feel it will take a while before City begin to gel and become a side capable of mounting a strong enough challenge on the title, but the Champions League is a must for the club this season and an opening day victory at White Hart Lane would certainly be a significant step in the right direction.

Match Verdict: Tottenham Hotspur to WIN – 2.40 Ladbrokes

It promises to be an enthralling watch as two sides which hotly contested forth spot last season begin the season with arguably the weekend’s most anticipated fixture, although fans of Arsenal and Liverpool respectively would argue that. However, there is to be no middle ground in this fixture, with no one team likely to be happy with a point in a game which come the end of the season could come back to haunt one of these two teams.

We would have to give the edge to Tottenham Hotspur simply because of their home advantage. Spurs had a decent pre-season, with Robbie Keane finding the goal with accuracy and regularity following on from his loan move to Celtic last season. With Peter Crouch unlikely to feature, Keane could well be given a run-out from the off alongside Jermain Defoe who scored 18 league goals last season. These two need to form a budding partnership on Saturday, and fast, as this is likely to be a high-tempo game, where chances come about every other minute. Man City could field three teams such is the strength in depth at Eastlands right now, but only eleven can take to the field and there’s still a great deal of doubt and uncertainty over whether City’s strongest eleven is capable of dethroning Spurs from fourth position. I do think they have a strong squad that Tottenham’s, but Tottenham’s have spent far longer together playing as a team than City have and unless the Mancini’s men hit it off quickly, securing three points in one of their trickiest trips of the season will be difficult.

We couldn’t back the draw in such an exciting game as this so we’ve gone for Tottenham Hotspur to provide Manchester City with an early reality check that money doesn’t bring overnight success.

Match Odds:

Tottenham Hotspur – 2.40 Ladbrokes
Draw – 3.10 VictorChandler
Manchester City – 3.40 Boylesports

SoccerBetting Value Bet: Over 3.5 Goals – 3.75 Boylesports

Tottenham Hotspur V Manchester City

Wednesday 16^th December – 20:00 GMT

Tottenham Hotspur

League Position: 5th

Recent Form: WWDDL

Tottenham are much like David Blaine – You expect magic yet all you get is some annoying fellah in a box, that annoying fellah being Kevin Doyle in Spurs’ case. There’s only been thee occasions when Tottenham have been firm favourites to win a match this season and they’ve come a cropper in two of those, one being their embarrassing 1-0 defeat at home to Wolves on Saturday. Now, though, they face arguably their biggest test of the season as City, a team challenging Spurs for a fourth place finish, come to town aiming to add yet more gloom to North London.

Tottenham were as short as 1/5 with some firms to beat Wolves at the weekend which just goes to show how much the Bookies had to thank for Kevin Doyle’s unmarked headed winner just three minutes into the game which paved the way for an early Christmas bonus. We would politely, yet firmly, like to say ‘Sod off’ to Spurs for their efforts on Saturday as how any club, especially one whose fans persistently think they are serious top four contenders, can lose to a club such as Wolves, at home, is beyond me.

The funny thing is, though, we actually fancy Tottenham this weekend and we hate ourselves for it. Harry Redknapp has done a miraculous job at the club but it’s pretty apparent that he’s not the best in motivating his players for the small games, with Spurs falling to defeat against both Stoke City and now Wolves at home this season, two games which should have produced two easy three points. However, the players should need little to inspire them as a City side aiming to do exactly what they set out to achieve come to White Hart Lane with their top four credentials well and truly on the line.

Tottenham’s home form this season is actually very patchy and one that is made to look pretty ordinary by the defeats to Stoke City and Wolves, both coming by 1-0 score lines. At White Hart Lane, Spurs have won five out of eight, with a draw not in sight. However, they have recorded some big results at home this season, none more so than their 5-0 romp of Burnley and their incredible 9-1 humiliation of Wigan Athletic. However, they failed to back both results up by losing in their following home fixture, but Spurs have yet to lose two on the spin at home and, for one reason of another, we can’t see Wednesday being the night for a first.

Man City

League Position: 6th

Recent Form: DDDWD

Mark Hughes and Man City have already signalled their intent on breaking into the top four by not only spending a ludacris amount on players over the summer but by also giving all of the top four a run for their money. Now, though, with their sights firmly set on breaking into that top four, they go up against a team who have the exact same objective for the season and it will be interesting to see whether City can now dash Tottenham’s dreams of Champions League football as they aim to boost theirs.  

City’s form book is littered with draws and they unwillingly added another on Saturday when they frustratingly couldn’t beat Bolton Wanderers at The Reebok, in what was their fifth away draw of the campaign. However, with White Hart Lane yet to embrace a stalemate this season, perhaps this is an all or nothing encounter waiting to happen, one which will either see City winning or losing, which would shake up the form book, thank God.

However, City have struggled to go that yard further when on their travels this season and have yet to beat a side with true European potential on the road. The closest they’ve come was a 1-1 draw with Aston Villa and a 2-2 draw with Liverpool, the latter a game which could easily have gone their way. However, even those so called ‘lesser’ side have held City, Bolton at the weekend being one of them, and betting on a City side who just don’t know how to win on the road looks a precarious bet in our opinion, one which has had very little appeal to us.

On the road, City’s record this season stands at 2-5-1, with draws being their downfall, although they’re better than defeats. Their only defeat on the road this season came at their bitter, local rivals, Manchester United, in a game they didn’t deserve to lose. However, although they’ve proven a difficult side to beat when on their travels, their defence has been found wanting on several occasions and has conceded 11 already, with five of those coming in their previous two outings. Equally, they’ve scored 13 in return but there are serious doubts over their defending this season, none more so then on Saturday when they conceded three against Bolton.

Head-to-Head (Last 10):

Tottenham Hotspur W: 9 Manchester City W: 1 Draw: 0

I was stunned when I read up on the recent meetings between the two sides to see such a one-sided h2h record. Rub your eyes – Tottenham have won nine of the last ten meetings between the pair, with their only defeat coming two seasons ago in Manchester. Spurs completed a league double over City last year, beating them 2-1 both at home and away. Spurs have also won the last five encounters at White Hart Lane, strangely enough, all have finished 2-1.

Match Verdict: Tottenham Hotspur to WIN – 2.38 SkyBet

We expect City’s drawing habit to be spoiled by a defeat this week as Tottenham aim to bounce back from their humiliating Wolves defeat. This is a big game for Spurs as a win would not only give them three points but it would also give them the mental edge over City, a team desperate to break into the top four. They will, though, need a much better performance than the one we had to endure on Saturday, whilst their strikes will need to be a lot more clinical in the game defining moments. Still, the omens are good, what with Spurs winning the previous five at home all 2-1.

Match Odds:

Tottenham Hotspur – 2.38 SkyBet

Draw – 3.40 PaddyPower

Manchester City – 3.25 Bet365

SoccerBetting Value Tip: Tottenham Hotspur to WIN 2-1 – 9/1 SkyBet