Chapter 0121: Visiting White Deer Lane
During the Ferguson era, Tottenham were a favourite opponent for Manchester United. Manchester United at least retreated from the White Hart Lane stadium, or it was easy to get three points, so many Manchester United fans also nicknamed Tottenham Hotspur the point boy, and its host White Hart Lane is Manchester United's three points lane.
This kind of thing may have sealed the seal in the era of Alex Ferguson, in the post-Ferguson era, whether it is David Moyes or Louis van Gaal, the dominating pressure that United faced Tottenham Hotspur has disappeared.
In the chaotic Premier League era this season, the two teams have been swapped offensively, with Tottenham Hotspur now sitting relatively comfortably in the top four, while Louis van Gaal's side are fighting for qualification for next season's Champions League.
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For Tottenham today, life is actually not easy, it can really be said that there are wolves and tigers.
From this round onwards, Tottenham Hotspur will start each round of the league after Leicester City, perhaps Pochettino had the dream of hitting the Premier League championship at the beginning of the season, and was also prepared to eat dirt behind others, but it should never be expected that the roadblock would be Leicester City.
Are you going to wait for Leicester City to make a mistake? The Italian coach may not be able to meet many people's expectations in attack, but defensively, Ranieri has won several rounds with a comfortable score of 1:0, and the consistency of his form is simply desperate.
Behind Tottenham, Arsenal is chasing after a three-point difference, but fortunately, in yesterday's noon game, the north London rivals were forced to draw away by the Hammers, as long as the team wins Manchester United today, it can temporarily widen the difference to 6 points with one more game.
Manchester United, on the other hand, are also direct rivals to Tottenham, who are now forced to fifth place by Manchester City, but are only six points away from Tottenham and have a game in hand. Should United win against Tottenham in direct conversations and then win in the replay against Crystal Palace, then Tottenham could be trampled on by Manchester United.
Manchester United are not an easy team for Pochettino, who have gone six games without a win, drawing three and losing three. In the last three league games against Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur have yet to find the back of the net.
And if you look at the historical record, Pochettino's heart is even more bitter: since winning Manchester United 3:1 in 2001, he has not tasted victory against Manchester United at home in the past 14 years, with 6 draws and 8 losses.
What's more, Manchester United's recent record is really terrifying, they have won ten consecutive games on three fronts, and they can be said to be the hottest team in England and even in Europe at the moment.
Moreover, they are both offensive and defensive, playing 31 league games and scoring 54 goals, ranking third in the league; Conceded 24 goals, the fewest in the Premier League. Again, because they scored too few goals (33) and conceded too many goals (24) in the first 26 rounds.
Of course, this statistic also shows how terrifying Manchester United have been lately: they have scored 21 goals in five Premier League games, but have not conceded a single goal!
And all this is brought about by the little guy who has recently amazed the whole world football - Marcus Rashford, who contributed 18 of these 21 goals and also created 2 penalties!
The only consolation for Pochettino is that his team isn't bad either. They have scored 57 goals in 32 league games, topping the Premier League and conceding 25, second only to Manchester United.
There is also a reliable goalscorer in his squad, Tottenham star Harry Kane, who has scored 22 league goals, 11 of them in 2016. Compared to Rashford, it will not be much worse.
This gave Pochettino a little more confidence in his heart when facing Van Gaal.
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The game has not even started and the situation has been a little bad for Manchester United. The first is that the team only played Borussia Dortmund in Germany for 90 minutes on Thursday night, and although it was a good result of 3-1 away, the fitness of the players was in jeopardy.
Before the start of the game, the team encountered the embarrassment of traffic jams, and it took almost an hour to toss and turn before Manchester United arrived at White Hart Lane. As a result, the game, which was supposed to start at 4 p.m., was postponed to 4:30 p.m.
Despite this, Manchester United's preparations were not perfect, and they only did a hasty pre-match warm-up before the game started.
However, fortunately, Manchester United has more experience in playing Tottenham, which has been accumulated through one victory after another: the two teams have met 183 times, Manchester United has 86 wins, 49 draws and 48 losses; In the 157 matches between the two sides at all levels of the English league, Manchester United won 78, drew 42 and lost 37; Among them, the 47 meetings in the Premier League are also 31 wins, 11 draws and 5 losses, and only one defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in the last 6 games. The most recent victory came in the season's opener, with Manchester United beating their opponents 1-0 at home.
The two sides invariably sent a 4231 formation on the field, with Tottenham still led by Kane in the attack, and Eriksen, Ali and Lamela formed the second echelon of attack. For Manchester United, Marcus Rashford, who had just won the Premier League's official March of the Month, burst forward, with Anthony Martial and Juan Mata all on the pitch.
United won the kick-off and they took advantage of it to launch an attack on the Spurs goal.
Everyone knows how dangerous Rashford is, and Tottenham have learned the lessons of their previous opponents who lost to Manchester United, and they have been on the defensive side of Rashford from the start.
With Marcus Rashford attracting a lot of Tottenham's defensive strength, Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard were given a more relaxed environment and the duo created some chances.
In the fifth minute of the game, Lingard made a steal in midfield and handed the ball to Schneiderling, who immediately passed the ball to Anthony Martial in front.
Because Tottenham was on the offensive at that time, most of the players went up and didn't have time to come back, so Tottenham's defensive strength was relatively weak.
Anthony Martial held the ball and advanced to Tottenham's penalty area, before Alderweireld, who had been playing with Vertonghen to defend Marcus Rashford, ran past to defend Martial.
Anthony Martial singled out Alderweireld, which was a good opportunity to score, but when Martial dribbled the ball to the line of the penalty area, he staggered and tripped himself, and the ball at his feet was also stabbed by Alderweireld and lost control of the ball.
Fortunately, the ball was not poked far and was picked up by Lingard, who followed up. But he hit the door immediately, but he didn't even hit the door frame. Because of his hasty shot, he actually kicked the body of his teammate Anthony Martial in front of him, reflecting the bottom line.