Tottenham Hotspur play Manchester City this weekend in a match that they can ill-afford to lose.
Spurs are six points behind fourth-placed Chelsea, who play Leicester City on Saturday. Should the Blues beat Brendan Rodgers’ side, they will move nine points clear.
This should be a motivating factor for Jose Mourinho’s side, who have a busy run of games in February that includes an FA Cup fourth-round replay against Southampton and a Champions League meeting with Bundesliga side RB Leipzig.
Momentum, then, is important.
This weekend, though, Spurs face a team in second in the Premier League, the closest challengers to Jurgen Klopp’s seemingly unassailable Liverpool; the Reds are 16 points clear of Pep Guardiola’s men and could be 19 clear come kick-off on Sunday.
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There is unlikely to be any lack of motivation in Manchester, then, and Spurs have a mountain to climb if history is anything to go by.
Since 2010, the two sides have played each other 22 times, 20 times in the Premier League and twice, unforgettably, in last season’s Champions League.
Spurs have won just six of those games. In 2010, they won 1-0 to seal a top-four finish thanks to Peter Crouch’s header. In 2013, under Andre Villas-Boas, goals from Jermain Defoe, Clint Dempsey, and Gareth Bale gave them a 3-1 win at White Hart Lane. Under Mauricio Pochettino, they won 4-1 in 2015, kick-starting a run of three straight wins that included a 2-1 victory at the Etihad Stadium and a 2-0 win in north London.
Since then, they have beaten City just once, in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final clash, thanks to Son Heung-Min’s goal. One could argue that they were also winners in their subsequent defeat at the Etihad Stadium, losing 4-3 but progressing on away goals after Raheem Sterling’s injury-time goal was ruled out by a dramatic VAR intervention.
They have drawn with City just three times, in 2010, 2017 and 2019, with the most recent two ending 2-2. That, too, involved a VAR decision in injury time, this time ruling out Gabriel Jesus’ goal.
The losses, though, have come thick and fast.
Indeed, City have humiliated Spurs on no fewer than five occasions, beating them 6-0 in 2013, 5-1 in 2011 and 2014 and 4-1 in 2014 and 2017.
Between 2011 and 2015, in nine games played against Spurs, City won eight.
Since 2017, Spurs have beaten City just once, in that Champions League clash at their new stadium.
Their most recent encounter, however, ended in a 2-2 draw; Spurs had just 44.6% possession in the game, which can be described as something of a smash and grab.
One has to think, then, that Mourinho faces a significant challenge as he attempts to overhaul Guardiola and give his side all three points.
He has the weight of history against him but he will hope that the first encounter between the two sides in this new decade brings a seventh win since 2010.
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