Manchester City Vs. Tottenham, 2012 Premier League Week 22: Big Matchup At The Top Of The Table

Four years ago, this game would barely have been a blip on the radar. In January 2012, it's a huge deal. First meets third in the Premier League, and if Tottenham Hotspur can somehow manage to beat Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium things get very interesting at the top of the table. That particular situation seems... unlikely.

Without Emmanuel Adebayor missing (due to being a City loanee) it doesn't look like Spurs are going to do much about the whole scoring goals thing, but the hosts' defence is hardly in the best of shape. Vincent Kompany is still suspended, which means a central defensive partnership of Joleon Lescott and Stefan Savic. That's probably more than cancelled out by the fact that Tottenham's strikers will be picked from Jermaine Defoe and Roman Pavlyuchenko.

In the midfield, Ivorian engine Yaya Toure is at the Africa Cup of Nations, which should give Spurs a boost. James Milner, Nigel de Jong and Gareth Barry still make up a formidable centre. They'll be going up against Scott Parker, Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart, so it makes some sense to use de Jong as a defensive holder/mad axe murderer to take care of van der Vaart while David Silva drags Scott Parker all over the place.

Up front, Mario Balotelli may not manage to make it, but City aren't lacking in firepower. Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko aren't chopped liver (unless they're tackling each other), and Harry Redknapp's defensive unit, while solid, probably shouldn't be expected to keep a clean sheet in Manchester. On paper, this is a clean City win, although perhaps not the slaughter that took place at White Hart Lane at the beginning of the season.