Man City vs. Tottenham
Venue: Etihad Stadium
Kick off:5:30PM
Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur square off at the Etihad Stadium this evening having both registered victories in their opening fixtures.
Raheem Sterling netted a hat-trick as City thrashed West Ham United by a 5-0 scoreline, while Spurs came from behind to register a 3-1 win over Aston Villa.
Pep Guardiola has been tasked with motivating a similar set of players to the one which won the domestic treble during the last campaign, but there are already signs that City will only continue to improve over the next nine months.
While the Premier League champions required penalties to see off Liverpool in the Community Shield, their clinical touch was on show as they dismantled West Ham at the London Stadium last Saturday.
There were times when City looked vulnerable, especially at 2-0 ahead and having had a high-quality effort chalked off by VAR, but the North-West outfit responded with three more goals during the closing quarter of the game.
Sterling rightly received most of the plaudits for his second-half treble, although it took contributions all over the pitch for City to register such a one-sided scoreline.
The performance came just days after Leroy Sane had been ruled out for the rest of the year with a serious knee injury, and Riyad Mahrez took the opportunity to step up in the German’s absence.
The playmaker found himself in and out of the team during his opening 12 months at City, but contributing two assists has put him firmly in Guardiola’s good books going forward.
Nevertheless, the most daunting aspect of last week’s performance was that it came without Bernardo Silva and Sergio Aguero in the starting lineup, while Joao Cancelo will only benefit this team having joined from Juventus.
However, while those players are pushing for roles in the first XI on Saturday, Guardiola may feel comfortable with keeping them in reserve after the five-star demolition of the Hammers.
On the other hand, Mauricio Pochettino is under pressure to build on last season’s appearance in the Champions League final after being allowed to make significant additions in the summer transfer window.
However, there were times against Villa last weekend where Spurs looked far away from matching the likes of City and Liverpool in the race for the Premier League title.
Pochettino suggested in his post-match press conference that he had got his tactics wrong, acknowledging that club-record arrival Tanguy Ndombele had under-performed on the left-hand side of a diamond.
However, having introduced Christian Eriksen into the action, the pair helped Spurs get back into the contest, before two Harry Kane goals got the North Londoners over the line.
With City and Arsenal to come before the international break, Pochettino would have been relieved that Spurs were not already playing catch-up to their immediate rivals, but the Argentine watched his team struggle without the influence of Eriksen.
Manchester City possible XI: Ederson, Walker, Stones, Laporte, Zinchenko, De Bruyne, Rodri, D.Silva, B.Silva, Jesus, Sterling.
Tottenham Hotspur possible XI: Lloris, Walker-Peters, Sanchez, Alderweireld, Rose, Winks, Ndombele, Sissoko, Eriksen, Moura, Kane.
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