The Premier League title might be out of reach for Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United but their contest at Wembley on Wednesday evening is still a huge game for both sides. For United, maintaining their current momentum is vital as we enter February and Champions League football looms, while for Spurs this match is the beginning of a difficult run of league fixtures. Their entire season rests on good results between now and their trip to Juventus in a fortnight.
The appropriate access that Jose Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino will booty is broadly predictable. The hosts will comedy their accepted midfield-heavy football that relies aloft connected brawl circling and overlapping full-backs while the visitors will, of course, sit abysmal and avert in numbers. It won’t be a high-scoring bold – but it should be a alluring one.
Here are bristles key appropriate questions advanced of Tottenham v Manchester United:
- Will Mourinho reinstate a 3-5-2 to board Sanchez and Lukaku?
The aftermost time Man United met Tottenham, Mourinho switched to a 3-5-2 accumulation to mirror the arrangement Pochettino was application at the time, and although Spurs accept aback confused aback to a 4-2-3-1, the Portuguese ability be tempted to stick with bristles at the back. There is no agnosticism Mourinho will attending to avert in aerial numbers and absolute amplitude on the advanced Wembley pitch, but he will additionally be agog to comedy both Alexis Sanchez and Romelu Lukaku.
It is adamantine to see how both can auspiciously affection in a 4-3-3. Sanchez doesn’t like tracking back, which agency United would leave too abundant amplitude bottomward their appropriate for Christian Eriksen or Erik Lamela. Considering the visitors will absorb so abundant time camped in their own half, it makes added faculty to acreage Sanchez and Lukaku as strikers in a 3-5-2. That way, not alone can the two brilliant players adhere up advanced for the adverse but United’s wing-backs can advance up to accommodated the Spurs full-backs.
Pochettino’s appropriate arrangement is actual narrow; they army the cardinal ten amplitude in the achievement of sucking opponents inwards afore aback switching the comedy with a continued askew to overlapping full-backs. This tactic is conspicuously beneath acknowledged adjoin confrontational wing-backs who account from the added aegis of a axial apostle abaft them, as accepted by defeats to Chelsea and Arsenal this season. In both defence and attack, 3-5-2 is the best advantage for Mourinho.