It’s a similar situation to when I took Tottenham up to City in 2010 for the game that decided which club qualified for the Champions League, it was being talked about as the £50million match and the rewards were huge.
I decided to go bold that night, playing with two strikers – Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe - and we won 1-0. I just felt we could cause them problems, I didn’t want to sit back and invite them on.
It was a great night and David Bentley and all the subs chucked water over me while I was giving an interview to the television, which I wasn’t best pleased about at the time.
If Tottenham beat City this time, they will put them out of the title race – they would almost be gone. Tottenham are solid at the back and they don’t concede many goals, so they will play their normal game and they don’t lose too often away from home now. City are as open as a barn door at the back. Apart from Vincent Kompany, they haven’t got any centre-halves who are good enough. They don’t want to defend and all the midfielders want to run forwards and not backwards.
Even if Tottenham get on the train coming home with just a point, it will be a good point and a bad result for Man City, same for Leicester – if they can come away with a point that will almost put Arsenal out of the running. Both of the home teams need to win this week because they’ve got hard fixtures to come and Leicester have got a great run-in, Tottenham have got a great chance. Manchester City and Arsenal need to win.
This is a really good Tottenham team. They haven’t got a Gareth Bale like I had, nobody has because he was the best player in the League, so you can’t replace him and Luka Modric is a world class player. But Spurs have got a lot of very, very, very good players.
Dele Alli is an amazing talent, Harry Kane, Toby Alderweireld has been fantastic, a great signing. Good full-backs, a great goalkeeper and Mousa Dembele has been excellent. It’s a really good team with a good manager.
You wonder why nobody else signed Alli because every week at MK Dons he was turning in fantastic performances. Kevin Hitchcock, who worked for me at QPR, went to watch his boy play for MK Dons and every week he said to me ‘this kid is the best young player I’ve seen in years, Harry’.
Every week he was making and scoring goals. All the scouts will be saying they spotted him or found him, but who claims the s*** ones? Nobody, they all say ‘no it wasn’t me, I always said he was no good’. We didn’t try for Alli at QPR because we knew he had no chance, we thought he would join Man United or Liverpool.
He reminds me a bit of a former Spurs midfielder, Jason Dozzell. He’s got a languid style like him. Alli’s 6ft, 2in, a big boy like Dozzell was. Dozzell was a great young talent. He was going to be a world beater, but he had a bad time with injuries.
As long as Alli stays fit I think he’ll go on to be a top, top player. He looks a great lad as well. The kid at Aston Villa who’s a talent, Jack Grealish, needs to look at Alli. He’s doing it week in, week out and you don’t hear anything bad about him. He’s gets on with his football. Grealish is a great talent, but he looks like unless he sorts himself out he’s going to waste that great talent, which would be a shame. Make the headlines for your football, not off the pitch.
With the young players like Alli, a great training ground and a new stadium to come, why would Pochettino leave Tottenham to go to Chelsea or anywhere else?
There’s a chance for Tottenham to become the biggest club in London, every chance. I think West Ham will push on and be a threat, but Tottenham are a bit ahead of them. They’ve got the money too, Joe Lewis is a very, very, very wealthy man. He’s up there with the wealthiest men in the world. If they can get in the Champions League or win the title, it looks set up for a long time at Tottenham.
I hear people joking about Tottenham always messing things up, but I remember when they did win doubles. Go back to Dave Mackay, Danny Blanchflower and Greavsie, Tottenham were the best team in the country and there’s no reason why they can’t do it again.
I’d have thought Pochettino will look for one of the top jobs in Spain if he does ever leave Tottenham. Real Madrid might be the one at some stage, but he’s doing great at Spurs and he won’t be thinking about leaving at the moment. All he’ll be thinking about is getting a ‘well done’ from Daniel for winning the League.
- Telegraph