LONDON – Tottenham Hotspur must play a “perfect match” if they are to stop a riotous Manchester City in the Premier League on Saturday, according to their coach Jose Mourinho.
City have broken to the top of the league and have won 15 consecutive games in all competitions.
The last time Pep Guardiola’s team suffered a defeat was 2-0 in the Premier League, against Tottenham, on November 21, since then they have played 22 games.
Tottenham’s performance has declined alarmingly since then and they have lost three of their last four league games to drop to eighth place and out of the FA Cup.
“We beat them because we played very, very well in that game and that’s the only way any team can beat Man City, you have to play very, very well,” Mourinho told reporters.
“You make a defensive mistake and they kill you. You know it’s very difficult to prevent them from scoring because they score all the time and you know it’s difficult to score goals because they don’t fit, so you have to play the perfect match.
“As we did when we played against them at home. We played the perfect match and their level of confidence was not the same.”
Playing 120 minutes in the FA Cup at Goodison Park was not ideal for Mourinho, who said he didn’t even want to look at the data after the 5-4 loss to Everton.
“Yesterday when I opened the Everton game data file, I closed it right away because I didn’t want to review it and I don’t even want to share that with my players,” he said.
“120 minutes playing with high intensity, chasing results, playing fast and intense soccer, of course, it was very difficult.”
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