On Friday, June 19, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur are scheduled to meet in what will determine the most serious contender for a spot in the top four. The meeting will be the first competitive match in three months for both teams.
Looking at the two teams from all perspectives, they are a similar team that are producing different results or outcomes. Though Manchester United has more success in terms of titles won, both teams have remained consistent members of the top 6 over the years.
Tottenham Vs Manchester United: the similarities
Currently, they are two of the top clubs in Europe who don’t have a consistent first eleven. Injuries among their top players this season have forced the coaches of the teams to try out a variety of options that sometimes work well and sometimes doesn’t.
Due to such inconsistency, they stayed out of the top 6 for sometimes until in November 2019 when Jose Mourinho settled down at Tottenham as a successor to Mauricio Pochettino. He brought a new spark to the team and returned the club to the 6th spot. But that didn’t last long as they dropped again to the 8th spot with 41 points in 26 matches before the coronavirus pandemic forced football to a halt on March 13.
While Ole Gunnar Solskjaer survived the #OleOut hashtag by bringing in fresh hands, Bruno Fernandes and Odion Ighalo, in February that brought a new spark to the team and establish them on the 5th spot with 45 points in 26 matches.
They are both preparing very hard for the restart of the season but still with an unsettled squad despite the fact that all their star players who were injured before the pandemic are back fit and ready to go. There are speculations that the biggest star at Tottenham, Harry Kane, may leave this summer while there are speculations that one of the biggest stars in United, Paul Pogba, may also leave the club.
Amid all these, Ole is yet to be contented with the players in his possession same as Mourinho who has been hurting for players to fortify his team going forward.
Tottenham Vs United: the dissimilarities
The last time Tottenham and United played a competitive match was in March – United played in the Europa League round of 16 and won 0-5, while Tottenham played in the UEFA Champions League round of 16 and lost 0-3.
On Friday, the two teams decided to have a friendly match to warm up their squad. Tottenham invited relegation-threatened Norwich City for the friendly and the team defeated Mourinho’s men despite the return of Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko, Heung-Min Son and Steven Bergwijn.
In the case of Manchester United, they played their friendly match against Championship side West Brom. It was a doubled 90 minutes friendly which saw Manchester United presented two different teams. In the first part of the 90 minutes, West Brom defeated United 1-2 with the presence of Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes in the team. While in the second part of the friendly, United defeated the visitors 3-1.
In the other hand, the last time Tottenham faced Manchester United was in December 2019 when Mourinho returned to the Old Trafford for the first time since the club sacked him in 2018. The Portuguese coach could not make them regret the decision as he was defeated 2-1.
So, when Tottenham and Manchester United step out to play on June 19, the world should expect to see a similar team playing against each other but should expect one of the teams to come out different. On that day, Tottenham will be hoping to end their losing streak while Manchester United will be hoping to continue their winning streak.
