Tottenham vs Manchester City Prediction and Betting Tips

MAN CITY travel to Tottenham in Super Sunday's standout Premier League showdown. Tom Love (@TomLove_18) shares his betting thoughts.

Tottenham vs Manchester City | Sunday 15th May 2021, 16:30 | Sky Sports

After the disappointment of a late losing goal in the Community Shield final against Leicester, Man City will be eager to strike back with a win on opening day against Spurs. There would’ve been plenty of more favourable fixtures for City but Spurs don’t look in great shape ahead of this season, it would be a much sterner test any other year.

Harry Kane is highly unlikely start after his links with City, and a lack of training, whilst Bryan Gil is also a doubt given his involvement in the Olympics. Spurs might therefore be best set to try contain and counter, a method that seemed to catch City out a fair bit in 19/20 but one they managed to get on top of last season given Pep Guardiola’s alterations to a more slightly more pragmatic way of working.

Even with Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Phil Foden unlikely to feature, there’s a scary depth to City and players like Riyad Mahrez, Ferran Torres and Jack Grealish will be eager to make their mark and try nail down a starting spot. The relative lack of options for Pep may make him opt for a low margin game, but they have enough stardust to edge it.

Looking at Spurs’ predicted XI it doesn’t look like top 6 material for me at the minute, it looks like the reliance will be on Heung Min Son for goals and attacking threat. Their defence has been improved with the addition of the excellent Christian Romero but he was used to playing in a relatively high line with Atalanta which worked well given his adept recovery pace.

Nuno opted for a back 5 and 2 holding midfielders, a bit like Gareth Southgate did with England, but was generally playing with a low block. It may take Romero time to adapt.

City are always short enough given their stunning performance data, but they rarely blew teams away last season. Two-thirds of their games saw fewer than four goals.

With that in mind I’ll gobble up the 6/4 on the visitors to win and Under 3.5 Goals with Betfair. It copped in the majority of their victories last season and is a decent jump up from the 4/6 on the straight victory.