After a tremendously fun Big Midweek of UEFAball it\u2019s back to the bread and butter of the Premier League this weekend.<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s still big. Very big. And a lot of that\u2019s down to the fact we\u2019ve got Spurs v Man City to enjoy. There are few more reliable fixtures for some kind of nonsense or other, and Spurs \u2013 the 14th best team in England<\/a> but the fourth best in all of Europe<\/a> \u2013 are currently in the mood for delivering piping hot nonsense at frankly dangerous levels.<\/p>\n Liverpool, too, would quite like to add some of their continental brio to their domestic offerings, while DNA-powered Man United reviver Michael Carrick must now prove he can do it in the non-blockbuster Sunday 2pm slot.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Game to watch: Tottenham v Manchester City<\/p>\n You know what\u2019s going to happen, don\u2019t you? We know it, you know it, Pep Guardiola knows it. Thomas Frank probably doesn\u2019t know it, but he doesn\u2019t know much of anything these days.<\/p>\n But yes, obviously, Spurs are obviously going to win this game. Rarely if ever has the fundamental paradox of Tottenham-City games applied more than it does here, to wit: the less likely a Tottenham win logically appears to be, the more likely it is to happen<\/a>.<\/p>\n And right now a Tottenham win in any game \u2013 obviously this only applies to any game of proper football in a difficult competition, not tish and fipsy like the Champions League \u2013 is a highly illogical outcome.<\/p>\n Spurs have just come through the gentlest imaginable run of fixtures, a January of almost cartoonish ease with which to get themselves back into contention for the European spots, and somehow come out the other side of it in the heat of a proper relegation battle having won not a single one of their last five Premier League games. They\u2019ve lost back-to-back against two teams whose winless Premier League runs extended to double figures before their appointment with the good doctor<\/a>, and coming minutes away from making that three on the bounce at Burnley.<\/p>\n Meanwhile they\u2019ve been casually winning games in Europe like it\u2019s nothing. In the last three months, Spurs have now won twice as many Champions League games (4) as they have Premier League ones (2).<\/p>\n A team that now, as an apparent point of principle, insists upon conceding at least two stupid and easily preventable goals in every single Premier League match they play has kept more clean sheets in the Champions League than anyone else.<\/p>\n This is Spurs heritage. This is what they do. Spursy has never been purely about the spectacular ability for the disastrous and humiliating; it has always required the ability to occasionally and often entirely inexplicably hit absurd heights to make the pratfalls so much bigger and funnier.<\/p>\n And for many years now, Man City have been a key punching bag along the way in the set-up for whatever nonsense Spurs are building up to. While for the last couple of seasons Spurs have perfected this wonderful new bit of being a clinical force in Europe but worse than ever before domestically,<\/a> they\u2019ve quite rightly never abandoned the ever-bankable \u2018improbable victory over Pep Guardiola\u2019s Man City\u2019 bit.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve won their last two trips to the Etihad 4-0 and 2-0, and also knocked City out of the Carabao last season.<\/p>\n This latest instalment is unfortunately at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where Burnley and Brentford remain the only Premier League teams this season to leave empty-handed, but does come with added banter potential from not just Spurs\u2019 own stupid form but the fact last weekend\u2019s results have got City right back on Arsenal\u2019s coat-tails in the title race<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s still a bit early in the season for it to become a true repeat of the great 23\/24 final-week showpiece, especially with Spurs so uncomfortably close to the bottom three. But it is nevertheless a game that has either a win-win or lose-lose element to it for Spurs, depending on your outlook.<\/p>\n And it gives us the latest chance to wheel out one of our very favourite stats. Since Wolves returned to the top flight in 2018\/19, Spurs have taken 18 points from their 15 Premier League games against them. Over that exact time period, Spurs have 23 points from 15 Premier League games against Man City.<\/p>\n Now we know Wolves were quite good for some of that time, but for a lot of that time City were the most relentless collector of Premier League points Our League has ever known. Yet Spurs hold a 7-6 winning record against them over a time period that includes only the very last not-very-good-actually bits of the Pochettino era and all the awful crud that\u2019s followed. And we\u2019ve not even mentioned the infamous Champions League quarter-final<\/a>.<\/p>\n We have no idea why it keeps happening as often as it does, but we can only assume it will keep happening for as long as Spurs remain so resolutely, utterly and determinedly Spurs.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Team to watch: Liverpool<\/p>\n Spurs aren\u2019t the only team using the Champions League to mask their domestic failings, with Liverpool managing to even finish above the all-conquering European night Lilywhites after thrashing Qarabag to finish third in the standings and achieve some level of cathartic release after the loss of the most misleading unbeaten run on record with that late defeat at Bournemouth.<\/p>\n And like Spurs, Liverpool now face a tricky game in which to try and port some of that European feel-good vibe to a misfiring Premier League campaign.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not exactly the same, sure. Liverpool are trying to win an undignified scrap for the Champions League placings and Spurs are trying not to get actually relegated, but the point stands.<\/p>\n Newcastle are Saturday night\u2019s opponents for Arne Slot. The lowliest of the English teams in the Champions League having finished all the way down in a perfectly decent 12th, and it\u2019s fair to say that they used up a bit more gas in battling gamely if in the end not that meaningfully to a 1-1 draw against the holders PSG on Wednesday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was a result that left both of them outside the top eight, and burdens Newcastle with another couple of games in a crucial month as they now try to avoid finishing outside the top five in England.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Player to watch: Tammy Abraham<\/p>\n