Manchester City v Tottenham Preview

Andre Villa Boas brings his Tottenham team to the Ethihad stadium looking to complete an away double over the Manchester teams this season. Both teams suffered disappointing results last weekend and failed to score while Spurs will be especially desperate to bounce back as they were booed off by their fans after the 1-0 reverse to Wigan.

taken from: mirrorfootball.co.uk

Previewing City's games are always the most difficult as it is totally impossible to predict the formation and kind of players that Mancini will send out every game. Be it three strikers or three defenders, Mancini has a different game plan for each match and so far this season, the tinkering has not been as successful as the last. There is a sense that he is still unable to figure out the best formation and the required personnel for the system and he has not been helped by injuries to his squad preventing him from settling on a first eleven. Villa Boas has done some tinkering of his own and despite it being on a smaller scale, has been well documented as he chooses between summer signing Lloris and veteran Friedel. Lloris is expected to start in this game and his performance will be instrumental to Spurs' hopes of winning the game.

The attacking talent on show today should be quite a feast for the eyes to the neutrals, with both teams not looking to purely sit back and soak up pressure. The main difference in the game will come from the flanks, where the Tottenham wingers will look to stay wide to deliver crosses, especially for Lennon. For CIty, Nasri and possibly Silva will look to drift into the middle to provide the through passes for Aguero if City plays with two wide midfielders instead of wingbacks. In Vertonghen, Tottenham has a left back who will be very comfortable of tracking his opponent into the middle of the park and I expect City not to get too much joy from that flank. It is on City's left flank where they might expect more rewards, if they can catch Walker on one of his forays up the field and they can also capitalise on Walker's occasional slack defending.

It will also be interesting to see just how well Huddlestone will cope when Garcia or Yaya Toure advances up the field. Both his opponents are physically imposing and offer a lot of energy in their runs, whereas Huddlestone is weak on both accounts. That being said, I don't foresee the City defence being able to cope with Bale. The kind of trademark driven crosses by Bale are sure to cause panic in the City defence and expect Dempsey or Defoe to pop up and take advantage.

Predictions:
Expect Tottenham to take this game as they will be the hungrier team and try to go for the win. Their performances have been better on the road than at home and this could aid them in the match. Goals should flow in the game but the 'both teams to score' and 'over 2.5 goals' bets seem to offer no value at all. The goalscorer market offers up a single bet that might be of value, with Zabaleta being the last scorer at 28/1 and this seems likely given his inspired performance in leading City's comeback in midweek. Punters who earned an extra bit of cash yesterday might also have a super small fun punt on Tottenham winning the game 5-3 at delicious odds of 500/1.