Can Pep Guardiola Still Save Manchester City’s Season?

The last time Manchester City faced Tottenham, everything was looking rosy. New manager Pep Guardiola had failed to win only one match of his opening 11 games, a 3-3 draw with Celtic in the Champions League, and his team were sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League table with a two-point cushion over second-placed Liverpool.

They were five points ahead of Chelsea at that time, too; 14 games later, they’re 10 points adrift of the Stamford Bridge side.

There’s been talk of a crisis and, while City fans will dismiss that thought and note their side is still just one win away from second place, there is the feeling that things aren’t going as well as they should be. It’s tight at the top and that’s putting pressure on Guardiola to take points off the teams around him.

So far, his record in that arena is hit-and-miss. He took 2-1 victories over Arsenal and Manchester United, but has lost ground in significant defeats — 3-1 to Chelsea, 2-0 to Tottenham and 1-0 to Liverpool. He’s got the opportunity to bolster that record on Saturday evening, as he meets Spurs for the second time this season.

For a long time, City fans dreaded meeting Tottenham. For years they were a bogey team, either stealing points in tight games or dishing out a thumping on occasion.

As City became title-challengers under Roberto Mancini, they began to find Spurs a much more palatable opposition and starting winning quite regularly in their meetings. That carried on through Manuel Pellegrini’s first two years at the helm, but ended in 2015-16 with a pair of limp performances that resulted in 4-1 and 2-1 losses.

What must concern Guardiola is that Tottenham are perhaps the one team that are set up perfectly to exploit his side’s weaknesses. They’re very good at putting their opposition under pressure, something City’s defenders can struggle with when a press is smartly executed, and they’re very quick to break. Recent evidence suggests Guardiola’s team don’t like that, either.

Throw in a back four that’s giving away chances, and a goalkeeper in Claudio Bravo who is struggling to keep the ball out of the net, and there’s the potential for talk of a crisis to still be hanging around on Sunday morning.

Yet, the match with Mauricio Pochettino’s side offers Guardiola an opportunity for a quick-fix redemption. In theory, Spurs’ tactics should suit the Catalan’s style of play — they aren’t going to sit deep and be hard to break down, they’re going to look at the fixture and think they have a very good chance of winning it by imposing themselves on the game.

In an ideal world, City would be able to accept the pressure that Tottenham put them under and break through the lines with two or three quick passes, leaving plenty of space for the likes of David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero to exploit.

That’s perhaps why the 2-0 defeat at White Hart Lane back in October is more palatable than recent losses. It was a rare loss this season that didn’t come down to City making mistakes, but rather Spurs being too good — they pressed so well that the visitors couldn’t play those quick passes to break through the lines and it stifled the supply to the forwards.

Guardiola could finally make use of Gabriel Jesus to help shape his front line on Saturday, too, as the Brazilian has been cleared to play by the club after a transfer from Palmeiras.

After suggesting that his side are out of the title race, Guardiola will now be aiming to secure a spot in the Champions League for next season. To this point, City haven’t looked as good as the four teams above them in the table, but being just three points off second place means they’re far from dead and buried for the latter half of the campaign.

A win over Tottenham on Saturday could do wonders. Aside from drawing them level with their opponents, it would also remind them that they are capable of winning on the big occasions. That’s been a regular struggle for City in the last 18 months.

With five wins in their last seven games, City aren’t in terrible form, though it’s impossible to deny that the two defeats in that spell haven’t been damaging. Tottenham, meanwhile, are currently flying — seven wins on the bounce in all competitions and just three goals conceded in that time.

Manuel Pellegrini’s final season fell apart on the back of a humiliating defeat (3-1 against Leicester) at the Etihad and a 2-1 home defeat to Spurs in February 2016. Guardiola needs a win on Saturday to breathe some life and inspiration back into his team, after an equally-as-humiliating 4-0 loss to Everton last weekend.

It would also help to ward off a resurgent Manchester United side, which has crept up on City in the last few weeks.