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Manchester United manager Rúben Amorim will be desperate for all three points against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the Red Devils boss will be keen to extend his side’s unbeaten run in the Premier League to five games. But perhaps second on the list will be an opportunity to take advantage of Spurs’ inconsistent form to finally claim a win over the North London side, since Amorim took over at Old Trafford.
Club Comparison
Tottenham Hotspur
Manchester United
Premier League
Premier League
€920.60m
Market Value
€730.20m
First Tier
League Level
First Tier
€210.60m
Expenditures 25/26
€250.70m
Thomas Frank
Managers
Rúben Amorim
Full Club Comparison
Indeed, while Sir Alex Ferguson may have famously poked fun at how easy the fixture once was for Man Utd - the Scot is quoted as once saying “Lads, it’s Tottenham” in a somewhat condescending team talk - his successor will be saying nothing of the sort on Saturday. In his first season at the club, Amorim suffered defeat on no less than three occasions when his team locked horns with Spurs with a 4-3 defeat in the quarter-finals of the League Cup, a 1-0 loss in the Premier League back in February and then, most notably, when Spurs overcame Man Utd by a solitary goal to win last season’s Europa League final.
However, while Amorim did very little to endear Man Utd fans to his tactics and methods when he joined the club last season and duly lost three consecutive games to Tottenham in the space of six months, the club’s poor run of form against their North London opponents actually predates Amorim’s move to the club. And when we compare it to Man Utd’s record against the other “Big Six” clubs in the Premier League, we find that Spurs have actually become something of a bogey club for the Old Trafford giants in recent seasons.
As we can see from the graphic above, when we look at Man Utd’s points-per-game average against the English top-flight’s five other big clubs in all competitions, we can see that Tottenham have inflicted the most grief on the Red Devils since the start of the 2022/23 season. In that time, Spurs have won five of their eight encounters, drawn two and lost just once to Man Utd since October 2022. When we break that down to a per-game average it works out at just 0.6 for Man Utd and is considerably less than their record against their other Premier League rivals.
While Arsenal can lay claim to an equally impressive record against Man Utd in that time (five wins and one draw in eight games), these figures show that the Old Trafford club have averaged twice as many points against Manchester City and almost three times as many points against Liverpool and Chelsea than they’ve managed against Tottenham in the last three seasons.