Man United vs Spurs


Man United vs Spurs

Man-United-vs-Spurs-Preview

After a 100% start to the season with an away win at Newcastle United and a home Wembley win against newly promoted Fulham, we travel to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United on Bank Holiday Monday.

Manchester United are the side I suggested in my pre-season look that would be the team to drop down the table from their second position last season. My feelings were that Tottenham and Liverpool would be fighting out for second place this season with Manchester United and Chelsea fighting for fourth.

After a couple of games this season and looking at the expected goals for and expected goals against statistics, that assessment is being borne out, although it is early stages.

If you take the two Paul Pogba penalties out of the equation and look at chances created and conceded against goals scored and conceded, we get an idea of what statistics tell us is likely to happen.

Man Utd struggle to create chances while conceding them, they rank worst of the top 6 on expected goal difference.

Man City +5.29
Liverpool +4.82
SPURS +3.17
Chelsea -0.11
Arsenal -0.61
Man U -0.85

The expected goals scored chart looks like this:


Man City 6.78
SPURS 5.77
Liverpool 5.68
Arsenal 3.21
Chelsea 3.10
Man U 1.62

The expected goals conceded chart looks like this:

Liverpool 0.86
Man City 1.49
Man U 2.47
SPURS 2.61
Chelsea 3.21
Arsenal 3.82

Games between Manchester United and Spurs have been tight low scoring affairs lately, particularly at Old Trafford. I'm expecting more of the same and a tense night in store.

COYS