It’s been a colourful season for Tottenham Hotspur – coming into the campaign as Champions League runners-up, they made a few key additions to their squad and aimed to kick on. In November, after three league wins from twelve games, they fired Mauricio Pochettino and hired as his replacement Jose Mourinho. The “Special/Humble/Happy/Delete as appropriate One” was appointed for one specific reason – his ability to get the maximum on-pitch return from the players available to him – and he has upped their points total. This, at least, he has achieved – with seven wins from thirteen, capped off with a recent home win over Manchester City.
The flip side to this “improvement” is that Spurs have still been less than impressive – points have been dropped against Watford and Norwich, while prior to the meeting with Manchester City, key clashes with Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United all ended in defeat. So, too, did one of their two January encounters with tonight’s opponents Southampton. Another meeting with the Saints was drawn, leading to tonight’s replay, which also happens to get right in the way of the club’s supposed “winter break” – something they could have done with, given Mourinho’s reputation for over-training his players.
Spurs face a testing evening
Sunday evening’s victory over the reigning (but soon to be ex-) champions will be trumpeted by Mourinho as an example that his tactics work. However, one has to consider that a large slice of luck has been involved in the North London side’s league meetings with Manchester City this season. The Citizens have had 48 shots against Spurs this season, fifteen on target. Two have gone in, and Pep’s men have picked up a solitary point from the encounters. In those two games, Spurs have had six shots – of which one was a speculative moon-shot from halfway by Harry Kane. Four have gone in, and Spurs emerged from those games with a total of four points.
The fact is that Tottenham – under Pochettino and now Mourinho – can frustrate a superior opponent for much of a game, but they need to rely on a fragility in that opponent to engineer a win. That’s why, with exactly the same bus-parking approach, they lost against Liverpool, a more confident side than City. It’s also why they’ve struggled against opponents such as tonight’s – Southampton will seek to make Tottenham beat them, which is something this Mourinho side struggles to do to supposedly inferior teams. A low-scoring game would not be a surprise – so take 32Red’s even-money price on a game with fewer than 2.5 goals in the 90 minutes, which seems like a good shout.
Saints enjoying away-days
The weekend just passed saw Southampton lose an away game for the first time in five trips – and in fairness, although the 4-0 margin looked heavy, they made Liverpool wait until the second half to open the scoring. Recently, Ralph Hasenhuttl has masterminded wins at Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Leicester City – a solid showing for a boss who could have been fired back in October when his side were eviscerated 9-0 at home by the same Leicester City. Now, the Saints board are seeing the benefits of their patience as Hasenhuttl’s side sit just six points behind Spurs in the league.
Part of this renewal has been down to the goalscoring form of Danny Ings. After his stint at Liverpool was all but decimated by two long-term injuries, the fact that the boyhood Saints fan is even still playing is impressive. Seeing him rise to second in the Golden Boot race – and threatening to catch the suddenly goal-shy Jamie Vardy in first – is something few thought possible. It makes William Hill’s enhanced-odds Anytime Goalscorer punt of 5/2 on Ings very attractive. The initial odds of 5/4 would have been worth considering in any case, so the boost is very welcome.
Time for another surprise?
One might wonder, given Spurs supposed “lack of form”, why they are fifth in the table at the time of kick-off. Can’t be that bad, can they? Then one might look at the Premier League at this stage of last season, when Arsenal held fifth position with a total of 47 points. Mourinho’s side are on 37, a full ten points less than that. Had the Gunners endured a fifteen-point deduction for some imaginary reason at this stage of 2019, they’d have fallen to eighth place. If the same hypothetical were applied to Spurs today, they’d drop into the relegation spots. They might be the fifth-placed side, but mathematically they’re closer to dropping out of the Premier League than they are to mixing it with the top three.
All of this statistical theorising is merely to make the point that, although the North Londoners come into this game as favourites, they’re really not that far ahead of Southampton by any metric that matters this season. And given that they’ve already met twice in 2020, with the Saints picking up a win and a draw, it would be naive for Spurs to get overconfident here. Betway have the visitors at 11/5 to make the fifth round, and whether that happens within 90 minutes, or after extras, it looks like a bet we’d take. It wouldn’t even be much of a surprise, the way things have been going this season.
Bets of the Day
Southampton to progress (Betway, 11/5); Danny Ings scores anytime (William Hill, 5/2); Fewer than 2.5 goals (32Red, Evens)