Premier League preview: Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City
Apparently the fixture computer does have a sense of irony.
Exactly 100 days since Manchester City’s dream of Champions League football died on their own ground, they come face-to-face with the men that killed it.
Peter Crouch’s headed winner at Eastlands back in May ensured that it will be Tottenham who travel to Bern next week with a chance to qualify for Europe’s top tier competition, while City go to the Romanian outpost of Timişoara in a bid to get into the Europa League. City’s players wouldn’t be human if they didn’t want to extract revenge, and so as a curtain raiser for yet another Premier League season that promises more thrills and spills, it isn’t a bad choice.
For 100 days, Roberto Mancini will know that he blew it.
City’s massive outlay leads them open to ridicule if they don’t succeed, and there is no doubt that – whatever they say to the contrary – Mancini’s Arab paymasters would have expected their team to be rubbing shoulders with Europe’s elite by now.
The summer arrivals of Yaya Touré, David Silva, Jérôme Boateng and Aleksandar Kolarov for a combined fee of around £80million have only increased that pressure, and with ends in sight for the tedious, summer-long chases for Mario Balotelli and James Milner, City head into the new season with the eyes of the football world on them once again.
That’s just how they want it of course, but one of their new arrivals is staying fully focussed in a bid to succeed.
“I don't go to discos, they don't attract me,” says Ivory Coast midfielder Touré, who joined his brother Kolo at City in the summer after completing a £24million switch from Barcelona.
“The music's very loud, there's the smell of cigarettes. You see people talking and smiling - but you don't know what they're saying. It's not my thing.”
A loss to the Manchester nightlife then, but a gain to the Manchester City midfield, and, as ever, he’s serious about doing well.
“In order to get what you want in life you have to have order and discipline. You have to have rules of life: Behave well, respect your surroundings, not smoke, not drink, not go out impulsively.
“The odd people are those who don't have a well-ordered life. I think I'm cool. I'm at ease with my way of life and that's the most important thing.”
City fans will think he’s cool if he can help his side to a victory tomorrow afternoon – although there is no use buying him a drink – but if he is to be on the winning side then he’ll have to overcome a determined Spurs team, whose excellent campaign last time out started when they were quick out of the blocks.
“We took a lot of positives out of the Liverpool result [a 2-1 win] on the first day of last season and went from strength to strength after that,” says skipper Ledley King.
“We then beat Hull, West Ham and Birmingham and we were on really good form, and it all came from the fact we got off to a winning start against a team who were title contenders. If we can start off the same way this season, it will set us up nicely. I'm really looking forward to it.”
As well he should, but boss Harry Redknapp must be mindful of collective consciousness turning to Bern ahead of what is such a huge game for Spurs in midweek. The identity of tomorrow’s opponents should ensure that that doesn’t happen though, and this might just be a good time for his men to be playing City.
The 2-1 win over Liverpool a year ago that King refers to was the perfect start to Tottenham’s season. It deflated the egos of a club considered their superiors and got Redknapp’s men off to a flying start.
Despite Spurs finishing one place higher than City last season, most pre-season predictions have placed the Eastlands outfit above the north Londoners, and so another chance to clip the wings of a supposedly better off rival might well inspire the home side to kick off their league campaign with a victory.
City still look very much like a work in progress, and with Mancini focusing so much on the ins and outs at a club who continue to hog the headlines on a daily basis, he might just have taken his eye off the ball on the pitch.
Spurs can take advantage of that, and a win would send them to Bern in high spirits.
City’s 100 day wait for revenge may well be extended.
Prediction: Tottenham Hotspur 2 Manchester City 1
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