Liverpool travel to White Hart Lane on Sunday where Brendan Rodgers’ revamped side will pit their wits against Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham.
Both sides go in to the game with plenty of questions to answer after their opening fixtures respectively. Spurs desperately struggled for large parts of their game against West Ham before making short work of QPR the following week.
Whereas, Brendan Rodgers’ side started with a win over last year’s surprise package Southampton, yet, went to Manchester City in the Monday Night Football and were dismantled with ease by Manuel Pellegrini’s sky blues. Contrasting results, that certainly do not scream out the word ‘convincing’.
The game is live on Sky Sports at 13:30 on Sunday and it could, just could be the first time we Mario Balotelli in Barlcays Premier League action since he left the blue half of Manchester for Italian giants AC Milan in 2013. Spurs’ boss Pochettino has shrugged off any talk of Balotelli’s return before Sunday’s showdown.
“I haven’t an opinion about that,” Pochettino said. “The only thing is that he is a very good player, a star.”
“For England, for our football, it is important that star players come here.”
“Mario Balotelli is an unbelievable player and that he has very good skill.”
“And, okay, it is important for football and for Liverpool, not for us.”
For the Argentine, the main priority is trying to maintain his 100 per cent start to life at the helm – a run that increased to four matches with Thursday’s 3-0 defeat of AEL Limassol in the Europa League play-off.
Liverpool will be Spurs’ toughest opponent thus far, and the game offers the White Hart Lane boys a chance to redeem themselves after crumbling 5-0 to the reds in the same fixture last season- a match which led to Andre Villas-Boas’ removal from his post.
“The past is the past,” Pochettino said of those losses. “I don’t want to remember the past.”
“It is a new season, I think a different style, different philosophy. Liverpool invested a lot of money this summer and we went another way.”
“We believe in our squad and add some players for the balance. Two different ways [of approaching matters].”
The ex Southampton manager will look to the likes of Christian Eriksen and Emmanuel Adebayor to lead the charge on Sunday. While a player who not many were familiar with prior to the start of the season- Eric Dier- has also burst on to the scene at the Lane, bagging two goals from two games so far and who’s to say there’s not more to come.
Sunday’s encounter will no doubt be tactical with these two young managers at the helm, but if you were ever expecting plenty of goals and excitement in a game, this is the one. An intriguing contest for the neutrals to behold.
Prediction: Plenty of goals, tactics and fast-action, culminating in a score-draw. 2-2.