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United States Tottenham vs Manchester United: Who is further from a return to the ...
It’s safe to say this has so far not been a vintage season for Tottenham Hotspur or Manchester United.
In the past 10 days, Spurs have been eliminated from both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, and for the time being must turn their attention to climbing higher in the Premier League than their current position of 15th. United have at least made it through to the last 16 of the FA Cup, but they too are currently languishing in the bottom half of the league table, one place above Spurs in 14th.
The pair have just three Premier League victories between them over the past two months, and will see winning the Europa League, where both are in Friday’s round of 16 draw, as their only chance of returning to the Champions League next season, and salvaging anything resembling progress on 2023-24.
The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke (Tottenham) and Carl Anka (Manchester United) discuss what has gone wrong for the two clubs this season, any morsels of optimism that can be gleaned from what’s happened so far, and how confident they are of seeing each other at that Europa League final in the Spanish city of Bilbao on May 21…
What has gone wrong this season?
Jack Pitt-Brooke: It is impossible to ignore the injury crisis that has ripped a hole in the Tottenham squad. For much of the past few months, head coach Ange Postecoglou has been without at least 10 players, and has had to cope with long-term absences for some of his most important ones — Guglielmo Vicario, Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero among them. This has made it impossible for Postecoglou to rotate his team, thereby exhausting those players who have avoided injury. That has made it impossible for Spurs to play the sort of football Postecoglou wants, and they’ve fallen further down the table than anyone could have expected. We could talk all day about the causes of their injury crisis, but that is the simple reason why Tottenham have done so badly.
Carl Anka: How long have you got? Erik ten Hag, United’s manager for the first three months of this season, spent many a press conference talking about the club’s ongoing “game model”, but it was hard to ascertain what the Dutchman was trying to achieve. Successor Ruben Amorim has been very clear on his tactical approach but also about the fact the current squad lacks the requisite physicality to compete with the best teams in the Premier League. Amorim often uses the word “suffering” when talking about United. He’s in charge of a poorly constructed and expensive squad that lacks many key ingredients for dominating modern football matches. United are often slow when using the ball and second-best when competing for loose balls.
How badly does the manager need a positive result right now?
Pitt-Brooke: The remarkable thing about this season is that Spurs’ record in the Premier League has been worse than anyone ever thought possible. They have lost 13 league games (out of 24 played) already and are only 10 points clear of the relegation places. It has been clear for some time that Postecoglou and Spurs can only have a successful season via the cups, which now means just the Europa League. So their season will hinge on that last-16 tie in early March. That said, Spurs have only won one Premier League game in two months, at Brentford a couple of weeks ago. So victory against United on Sunday would certainly help, if only to stop the mood from getting even worse than it already is.
Anka: Amorim’s 20 matches in charge have yielded 10 wins (one of them on penalties), two draws and eight losses. United fans hoping for a ‘new manager bounce’ to heal some wounds and fire the club back into the Champions League are feeling rather underwhelmed. The 40-year-old is a confident and charismatic speaker, but his repetition of how much players and fans will have to “suffer” in the short-to-medium-term future has gotten people antsy. United aren’t very good right now, so Amorim could do with a positive result (not to mention performance) against Spurs to reassure the fans that things will be improving soon.
How close is the team to playing the way the manager wants?
Pitt-Brooke: The lesson of the past few months is that Spurs cannot play ‘Angeball’ without having something closer to a full-strength squad. They have not played it for almost two months now, since the period in the middle of December when they beat Southampton 5-0 in the league and Manchester United 4-3 in the Carabao Cup. For it to work, they need to be able to build up from the back, which means playing left-footers on the left side of their defence. And they need the physical energy to be able to press high up the pitch. When injured players come back and new signings get settled in, they might be able to do that. But with this exhausted, depleted squad, they simply cannot.
Anka: Amorim’s preferred tactical approach is a tad more bespoke, due to its use of wing-backs and how it asks a trio of centre-backs to take care of early build-up play. The arrival of Patrick Dorgu in January should bolster things out wide. Still, the team lack ball carriers and progressive passers in central midfield, and neither Rasmus Hojlund nor Joshua Zirkzee is in great goalscoring form up front. Amorim’s shopping list isn’t full of diva-ish demands, but it might be a little too lengthy to solve in one summer window, especially at a time when United aren’t flush with spending money.
How far away are they from being a top-six team?
Pitt-Brooke: The strange thing about Tottenham this season is that their top level is easily good enough to make them a top-six team. They have produced a handful of brilliant performances — the two wins against Manchester City, the two against Manchester United, the one against Liverpool — and when they are at their best, they are very difficult to stop. The problem, of course, is that Tottenham have only produced that level of form a few times, and have had far more bad days than good ones. Which ultimately is because of their injury crisis, and having a squad that is too thin to compete on multiple fronts. If they want to get back into the top six, they will have to make sure they have a deeper, more robust player pool, so they can find the consistency they have lacked all season.
Anka: Heart says United will be back by the end of 2025-26. Head says it may take longer. It’s not just that Amorim will need a considerable amount of time, money and luck to improve the side to get them back into the top six. It’s also the fact he might need one or two of their rivals for one of those spots (including Spurs) to all have mini-implosions at the same time to open up space. Manchester City are unlikely to be this bad again next season. Arsenal will probably spend money in the summer. Chelsea with a better goalkeeper are a greater threat. Newcastle and Aston Villa aren’t going away any time soon. Nobody expected Nottingham Forest or Bournemouth to be this good. It’s a slugfest to get into the top six and then stay there season on season now.
How do the fans feel about what is happening off the field?
Pitt-Brooke: Not great. The mood among the Spurs fanbase has been more negative this season than it has for years. That is largely down to the struggles of the team on the pitch but is not limited to that. Their anger has been largely directed towards chairman Daniel Levy and the board, with chants of ‘Levy out’ becoming louder and louder at every game. On Sunday, there is a march planned outside the ground before the United match from a group calling itself ‘Change For Tottenham.’
Anka: This week saw The Athletic report that co-owner INEOS is continuing with another round of cost-cutting at the club, with over 100 more people set to lose their jobs. There is a growing awareness that United are in a bad way. But also a growing awareness they don’t have much financial wiggle room to get out of that situation. The mood is pretty bleak, with some of our readers getting in touch to ask for reasons to be cheerful.
What is the lesson each club can learn from the other?
Pitt-Brooke: How not to forge an identity
The lesson Tottenham might learn from United is maybe more of a negative than a positive one. United have spent the past 12 years jumping from idea to idea, from personality to personality, without any clear sense of what their ethos is. It has been hugely expensive and has seen their team get worse rather than better. Spurs are not quite there yet but they have now spent five years changing ideas, hierarchies and managers, and have got nowhere with it. They have far less of an identity today than they did when Mauricio Pochettino was in charge. If they are going to avoid making the same mistakes United have, they will need to show more of a consistent strategy, rather than being drawn from one idea to the next.
Anka: How do you best go about moving stadiums?
Spurs’ new home is an architectural masterpiece, taking cues from American sports culture as to how to make your ground an all-day visit instead of a “kick off-to-full time” viewing experience. United have been in contact with Populous – the architectural design firm behind Spurs’ stadium – and have looked at how they might approach either refurbishing Old Trafford or building a new stadium entirely. United fans should be talking to every Spurs supporter they know about what happens when your club moves to a new home, and what mistakes they need to look out for, before the higher-ups at the club wander into any traps.
What are their reasons to be positive for the future?
Pitt-Brooke: Tottenham have a squad including some of Europe’s most exciting young players. Archie Gray has been brilliant this season in different positions and is still 18 years old. Lucas Bergvall has grown into English football since his arrival from Sweden last summer and only turned 19 this month. Mikey Moore, the most talented player to come out of the Spurs academy for a generation, is 17. Even among the more established players, Mathys Tel is 19, Antonin Kinsky is 21, Destiny Udogie and Pape Matar Sarr are 22 and Radu Dragusin, Brennan Johnson and Micky van de Ven are 23. (Not to forget Wilson Odobert at 20, and Luka Vuskovic, who will be 18 when he arrives in the summer). Put them all together and Spurs have a squad that will surely only get better over the next five years.
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Anka: United’s training base at Carrington continues to develop promising young players.
The first daffodils of spring have been spotted around Manchester, indicating this crap winter weather is nearly finished. If you’re reading this and are based in the northern hemisphere, you’ve just got through the six darkest weeks of the year. Onwards.
Confident of these teams meeting again in the Europa League final in May…?
Pitt-Brooke: Not really. Of course, Spurs are good enough that in theory they could beat anyone and make it through three two-leg ties to reach the final in Bilbao. But we have to be honest about the fact they have not played anywhere near their best in months. Yes, players are now coming back from injury, but recent weeks have shown that not everyone who returns will be able to stay in the team. And their core players — Dejan Kulusevski, Pedro Porro and Son Heung-min — are so exhausted now that they cannot play their best football. Maybe these two free midweeks they’re having this week and next will give those players enough of a rest, and Spurs will be a team transformed in March, just in time for their knockout ties. But if you have watched Tottenham playing recently, would you really bet on it?
Anka: Bilbao is an incredible place to watch football. So much so that friends recommend I book my flights and hotel now, regardless of who makes the final. It’s nice that both teams avoided the competition’s play-off round this month and went straight to the round of 16. Unfortunately, they both have obvious flaws and troubling tendencies to play down a level against “beatable” opposition.
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(Top photos: Getty Images)
