Sunday 2 October 2016 13:17, UK
Manchester City face their toughest test of the season so far at Tottenham and must win the midfield battle to come out on top, says Jamie Redknapp...
Manchester City won their first 10 games of the season but that 100 per cent record went on Wednesday night with the 3-3 draw at Celtic and now they face their toughest test of the campaign so far at Tottenham.
Mauricio Pochettino's side are improving game by game and - even without Harry Kane - will present Pep Guardiola with problems to solve.
Make no mistake, City will have to work harder and play even better than they did in the Manchester derby to beat Spurs this weekend.
This Tottenham team have made a good start to the season, sitting second on 14 points from six games. However, they certainly haven't hit the form of last year yet and still have a lot of headroom to improve. That must be so encouraging for Spurs fans.
Missing Moussa Dembele for the first few games clearly affected their play and Kane's injury is a blow, too - but they've been fortunate to see Heung-Min Son step up and he has really delivered for the team.
At one stage this summer it looked like Son could be on his way to Wolfsburg but Tottenham held onto him and he has proven he doesn't deserve to be in anyone's shadow now, with five goals in his past five games. He currently looks much more of a threat than Vincent Janssen.
Spurs will aim to get Son on the ball in dangerous areas as much as possible on Sunday - but they can't over-commit against this City side.
I'm sure that after the draw at Celtic a lot of teams will look at City and think the best way to stop them and to hurt them is to get on the front foot and take the game to them, as Brendan Rodgers' side tried to do. However, that's a dangerous game to play.
City just got caught out in Scotland, perhaps underestimated the task in front of them, weren't quite at the races and ended up chasing the game. But they have some players with real pace who are brilliant on the counter-attack.
Man City can cut teams open on the counter-attack - and Spurs need to be wary of that.
They can cut teams open on the counter-attack - and Spurs need to be wary of that. There have been some big scores in this fixture in the past couple of seasons and the home side shouldn't open up too much.
With that in mind, I think the key battle here will be in the centre of the park, where Ilkay Gundogan - a talented, technical player I really like - and Fernandinho will go up against Dele Alli, Victor Wanyama and Eric Dier.
If the visitors come out on top in that area, they have a top players ahead of them, with David Silva, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero ready to do some damage. Even without Kevin De Bruyne - City's most influential player this year - they have lots of great options.
However, there's some formidable opposition in that Tottenham midfield and, as someone who played in that position, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it pans out.
Ultimately, I can see this ending up 2-2 - both sides have lots of attacking quality.
Spurs have improved since their last big game at White Hart Lane, when they were fortunate to earn a draw with Liverpool. If they can match City in that midfield area, they can get another important result on Sunday - and deny Guardiola a seventh-straight Premier League win.
