It is 9 months since Manchester City went 3 competitive matches without a win and that was in a tough 6 day period that saw them face Liverpool twice and Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. The thought of Manchester City going 3 matches without a win or even having 3 losses in a row seems almost impossible. The fact is Manchester City usually respond to poor results well and they need to be up for this match. With the depth in their squad, Manchester City can line up with an effectively full strength squad whereas Spurs may suffer from fatigue after their match on Sunday. In this fixture last year, while City lost 3-2 the xG score was actually City 2.6-1.1 Spurs, showing how unlucky City were to not win. I expect City to show up in this match and be too good for Spurs, so I am backing City to win here.

After being rested against Manchester United, Ilkay Gundogan can come back into the squad here and make an impact. Gundogan loves playing against Spurs, he has scored in 2 of his last 3 matches against them and in the last match he scored from one of 5 shots he took in the match. Gundogan averages 2.26 shots per 90 and is playing against a team that allows the 4th most shots per 90 of any team in the league. Spurs allow 14.26 shots per 90 and it is likely Manchester City will have even more than that in this match, in last years fixture they had 20 shots. I expect Gundogan to be a big threat in this match and he should easily have at least 2 shots in this match.

Manchester City average 724.8 passes per match, the highest of any team in the league by far, Spurs allow 519.9 passes per match on average. Spurs also have a PPDA of 14.3, apart from Fulham that is the highest of any team in the top 10. Away at Manchester City, Spurs will surely sit back and look to play on the counter and I expect a lot of Manchester City possession. In this fixture last season, Manchester City had 71% possession and 6 Manchester City players attempted over 85 passes. Expecting a similar pattern in this match, the Manchester City centre backs will attempt a lot of passes, in the previous head to head Laporte attempted 121 passes and Dias attempted 86. As John Stones is injured and Dias is yet to return from his injury, it is expected that Manuel Akanji will start at centre back in this game, he has already attempted over 90 passes in 6 matches this season, including the recent match against Manchester United where he attempted 110 passes. At odds of around evens Akanji is good value to attempt at least 90 or more passes.

Manchester City average 6.56 corners per match in the league this season and Spurs concede an average of 4.47 corners per match. I expect Manchester City to be dominant in possession and when they do dominate possession they usually have a lot of corners. This has shown in previous matches against Spurs, Manchester City had 10 corners in their last match against Spurs and 11 in the match before that. In fact, in the last 7 matches between the teams, Manchester City have had at least 5.5 corners 6 times and they’ve had at least 10 three of these times. I see City having a high corner count here and they could easily surpass the 5.5 corner mark.