Manchester City v Tottenham: Frank to frustrate Pep in Saturday early kick-off | OneFootball

English Premier League

Can Spurs make life tough for Manchester City at the Etihad?

Manchester City and Tottenham both won handsomely on Gameweek 1, and Kevin Hatchard believes this will be a closer game than the market suggests...

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Manchester City v Tottenham

City have made encouraging start to title push

It's hard to get too excited about a heavy win against Wolves, given that the Old Gold are expected to be a bottom-half side, but there were plenty of positives for Manchester City to take from their 4-0 success at Molineux. Erling Haaland looked his old devastating self, grabbing a brace, Tijjani Reijnders was exceptional in midfield, and the thrilling Rayan Cherki bagged his first Premier League goals.

Pep Guardiola knows he faces a stiff challenge to get City back on their perch, with Liverpool and Arsenal worthy rivals for the crown, but he seems up for the challenge. Although the Club World Cup ended in ignominy with a careless defeat to Al Hilal, you could see that the Catalan schemer was road-testing a few tactical tweaks, and it was a vital opportunity for new recruits like Reijnders, Cherki and Rayan Ait-Nouri to start settling in.

Injuries to Rodri and Mateo Kovacic still leave City vulnerable on the counter-attack, while there are fitness doubts over Josko Gvardiol, Phil Foden and reported Tottenham target Savinho.

Eze snub masks Frank's forward progress

When you talk about the age-old phenomenon of Spursyness, it generally applies to mental collapses on the field, the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This summer that notion has leaked into the transfer arena - Spurs were close to signing Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White before a complicated release clause and a determined Forest owner blocked their progress, and now it appears Arsenal have pipped Tottenham to the signing of Crystal Palace star Ebere Eze.

Those failures leave Spurs light in the number ten position, not least because they have lost Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison to injury. They have also distracted from what has generally been an encouraging start to the season under new boss Thomas Frank. The Dane nearly saw off PSG in the UEFA Super Cup, only for the French giants to equalise late on and win on penalties, and then Burnley were swept aside 3-0 in the Premier League opener.

Kota Takai and Radu Dragusin are out injured, but Tottenham still have enough centre-backs to potentially field a back three, as they did against PSG to good effect.

Tottenham can run City close

Thomas Frank has had more success than most against Pep Guardiola's City in recent years. At Brentford he lost five out of eight against Man City in the Premier League, but only two of those defeats were by a multiple-goal margin, and the Bees actually won two of the last six. It's also worth noting that Tottenham have lost just one of the last seven clashes with City by more than one goal.

I'll give Spurs a +2 start on the Handicap and combine it with Mohammed Kudus to be fouled twice at 6/4 on the Bet Builder. The in-form Ghanaian was fouled twice against PSG and twice against Burnley. If you look at his last 17 games for West Ham he was fouled twice or more in 13 of them.

Terrific Tijjani part of 5/1 Bet Builder

I'll put together a treble on the Bet Builder that pays out around 5/1. The first leg involves backing Tijjani Reijnders to have a shot on target. The Dutch international scored against Wolves, with one of his three goal attempts finding the target. He had five shots in three games for City at the Club World Cup, and even though none of those were on target, I have plenty of belief in a player who scored ten goals in Serie A last season for Milan and who averaged 0.81 shots on target per 90 in that league campaign.

The next part is backing Reijnders' fellow Dutchman Micky Van de Ven to have a shot. Spurs have been much more focused on set plays in both boxes under Thomas Frank, and Van De Ven is proving to be a danger. He scored against PSG in the UEFA Super Cup, and against Burnley last weekend he had two goal attempts and racked up 0.6 xG. Incredibly, that's the same amount of xG as he recorded in each of the last two seasons, as he was often used as a speedy backstop to prevent counter-attacks. If you wanted to, you could back this as a single at a healthy 6/4.

Finally I'll back Spurs' midfield dynamo Pape Sarr to be fouled. The Senegalese has been a major part of the team under Thomas Frank, and he carries the ball with real purpose. Without Rodri or Mateo Kovacic, I can see Sarr building up a head of steam a few times and being brought down, and he's been fouled at least once in both competitive games this season. He was also fouled in five of his final eight appearances of last season.

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