Why playing record-breakers Manchester City holds no fear for Tottenham

Tottenham's best results this season have come against high-quality teams but will they be able to get a result against Pep Guardiola's City?

Tottenham took four points off Manchester City last season (Getty)

Not many teams would want to play Manchester City this weekend and face the prospect of being their 16th consecutive Premier League victim. But then not many teams are having a season like Tottenham Hotspur, so routinely frustrated by sides coming to Wembley and parking the bus. Spurs found a way to overcome Brighton and Hove Albion on Wednesday night, but they needed a fluke goal to do it. At least at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday they will play in an open game.

Mauricio Pochettino denied afterwards that he had any issue with teams coming to Wembley with no real ambition to play football. He said that “anyone can play in the way that they want”. But Danny Rose, never a mincer of words, admitted afterwards that it was “just not a nice game” and no-one in attendance would disagree with him.

It is no coincidence that Spurs’ best Wembley results this season have all come against good teams who have gone there and attacked them: 3-1 against Borussia Dortmund, 4-1 against Liverpool, 3-1 against Real Madrid.

The rest of the games have all followed a similar pattern, with opponents defending deep and narrow, turning the game into a repetitive routine of attack versus defence. Sometimes they win, as they did on Wednesday. Sometimes they do not, as was the case against Burnley, Swansea and West Bromwich Albion. But it is never much fun.

“Tonight was just not a nice game,” Rose admitted afterwards. “When teams come here they get in shape and make it really difficult for us.”

Manchester City will certainly make it difficult for Spurs on Saturday, but not like that. They have scored 52 league goals already this season – putting them on course for a ludicrous 116 – and at the Etihad Stadium they will try to dominate, attack and put as many past Spurs as possible. For Rose that is not something to fear, that is something to look forward to. Tottenham have a decision to make on Saturday, whether to sit deep themselves or to take City on and press them into mistakes. Hearing Rose speak, there is little doubt what Spurs will do.

“With the offensive players we've got, when teams come at us, it suits us better,” Rose said. “And we'll be looking forward to watching our offensive players getting right up against City and causing them problems.”

Danny Rose said Tottenham will be looking to taking on City (Getty)

Of course, Spurs’ record away at the big six is well known and no-one is making them favourites this weekend. But their one win in games like this, back in February 2016, was at the Etihad Stadium. Last season they grabbed a 2-2 draw there as well as running City off the park in an emphatic 2-0 win at White Hart Lane. And the last time they faced a side with a run nearly as good as City’s they stopped it: over-turning Chelsea 2-0 at home last January.

“We were the first ones to beat City last season and we disrupted Chelsea's unbeaten run,” Rose proudly pointed out. “It's a challenge we all look forward to. It's a challenge the manager looks forward to.”

So there is no question about motivation from Spurs this weekend, although whether they will be good enough is another question entirely. “In these games, the manager knows he's going to get 100 per cent from everyone,” Rose said. “There's going to be a lot of eyes watching us this weekend. We haven't done so well away from home against the top teams this season so we hope to go there with some confidence and keep pushing on after three wins that we've had over the last week.”

Pochettino said that his team are going to go to the Etihad Stadium trying to win and believing that they can. They drew 1-1 at the Bernabeu and won 2-1 at Signal Iduna Park in the Champions League this season, after all. Rose echoed that ambitious message, too. “We will go there and relish it,” he said. “They are in good form. At the minute, they do look very frightening - scoring goals, they've kept a clean sheet tonight. But we've done alright there in the past couple of seasons and that should give us some confidence at the weekend.”

Can Tottenham get a result against City like they did last season? (Getty)

Tottenham know they are facing the best team in Europe right now, but everything Pochettino has achieved at Spurs has been based on ambition and optimism. If they did not push the boundaries then they would never have put together their two best title challenges for a generation, finishing third and second in the Premier League. If City are ever going to lose a game, why should it not be to the team who took four points off them last year?

“There is pressure on us from ourselves and the manager,” said Rose, denying this was any sort of free hit for his team. “He demands the best from us in every game so I wouldn't like to think there is no pressure on us. We know our standards and whenever we slip from those standards the manager lets us know. So there is pressure on us and we look forward to going there and being the first team to beat them this season. As we did last season.”