Man Utd v Spurs guaranteed to deliver red cards, all of the goals and late, late twists | OneFootball

It’s Manchester United v Tottenham this weekend and that makes us very excited.

The reason isn’t complicated; it’s because it’s almost guaranteed to be absurd but even more importantly with absolutely no guarantee about which specific way(s) it will be absurd.

That’s the real fun. It will be ridiculous, sure, but not one of us can possibly know exactly how it will be ridiculous.

Only a certified idiot would attempt to predict what would happen in this latest clash between the two stupidest big Premier League clubs over the last couple of years.

Here then are our predictions for what will happen in this latest clash between the two stupidest big Premier League clubs over the last couple of years.

Late twists

Emphasis very much on the multiple here. That’s the key to this bit. Obviously every team has games that feature late drama. It is an integral part of the game for everyone, for both good and bad.

Nobody goes through a season without at least a bit of late drama.

What we have here, though, are two teams whose penchant for the ridiculous often extends to the best kind of late drama, where one late sucker punch is followed by another even later sucker punch, increasingly the comedy levels of the whole thing.

The reverse fixture between these two earlier in the season was a classic of the genre. United were leading until Spurs equalised in the 84th minute and then went ahead through Richarlison in stoppage time.

Cue a typical quiet and restrained Richarlison celebration and further proof that the Brazilian taking his shirt off is one of the most reliable harbingers of doom this universe has yet devised.

After Spurs went ahead in the first added minute, United equalised in the last, leaving neither side remotely sure whether or not they should be happy about what they’d won or annoyed at what they’d spaffed away. Which for us is the perfect outcome to any football match.

But while it’s a wonderfully pure example, as you’d expect from a game featuring both these idiots, it is far from a rogue outlier in either side’s season.

Just last week, United lost and regained the lead against Fulham in stoppage-time. At Arsenal they responded to an 84th-minute equaliser with an absurd winner three minutes later. In their other big cathartic win over a historical rival in Liverpool the timings were slightly earlier but still valid, with Liverpool’s 78th-minute leveller countered by Harry Maguire’s giant cheat-code of a head six minutes later.

In a wild 4-4 draw against Bournemouth in December, United trailed after 76 minutes and led after 79 before being pegged back again.

In addition to the United game, Spurs have this season managed to fall behind twice and hit back twice all within the final 20 minutes of a 2-2 draw at Newcastle, and experienced the absurd delights of watching Joao Palhinha score his second overhead kick of the season (more on that later) to drag them level at Bournemouth only for Antoine Semenyo to score a winner with his last kick before joining Man City, for whom he would inevitably also score against Spurs a few short weeks later.

Spurs have drawn 2-2 against PSG in a game they led 2-0 with five minutes remaining, and have drawn three games in which they have trailed 2-0 (Brighton, Bodo/Glimt, Man City).

Three of Tottenham’s last four Premier League games have featured result-altering stoppage-time goals, and the one that didn’t contained one of the least likely comebacks from 2-0 down you could possibly imagine.

And let’s not forget either that these two teams also had a 4-3 caper in last season’s Carabao in which a 3-0 Spurs lead was cut to 3-2 before Son Heung-min scored direct from a corner with two minutes to go, which still left time enough for Jonny Evans to score United’s third and keep Spurs honest in the closing seconds.

Outrageous goals

United have scored some very good goals this season, with Matheus Cunha at Arsenal a fine recent example. But this category has surely been more of a Spurs speciality and does feel particularly on-brand.

What we like best about the sheer number of genuinely ridiculous goals Spurs have scored this season is that they’ve had these frequent oases of genius and/or ridiculousness dotted around in a barren wasteland of what is unanimously agreed to be some of the worst and most joyless, uninspired and uninspiring attacking play this or any other club has ever produced. It is genuinely unwatchable at times yet very occasionally utterly unmissable at others.

Spurs have so far this season scored: four overhead kicks (one of them by a centre-back – an equaliser deep into stoppage-time, naturally – and two from a workhorse, tackle-loving defensive midfielder), a box-to-box individual effort sure to get a Puskas nomination (also scored by a centre-back, but a different one), a completely pointless goal from 45 yards out in the middle of what otherwise appeared to be some kind of anti-football dirty protest of a performance in a humbling at Arsenal, and a scorpion kick to provide what was, in multiple ways, the single most unlikely equalising goal on record.

So we will accept nothing less here than Destiny Udogie running the length of Old Trafford before scoring an overhead rabona from 37 yards. In the 98th minute. Before Bruno Fernandes scores a penalty in the 101st.

Cristian Romero sent off

Not, admittedly, a novel idea. But surely never a stronger claim than now.

We make no apologies for the fact Romero is one of our absolute favourites. There’s always something about any player who combines genuine elite talent with what at times borders on a kind of actual madness.

It also means he is often unfairly punished because there are few players more conspicuously preceded by their reputation, but never mind that now because on this occasion it helps us because we are actively predicting it.

Romero is an emotional sort, prone to head-loss and at all times capable of losing the entire run of himself. It can happen at any time.

But consider the current state of things and it’s easy to see why this is a perfect storm of a game.

First of all, Romero can go rogue at any moment but does tend to preserve his red-card shenanigans for the biggest games. His three Premier League red cards have come against Manchester City, Chelsea and this season against Liverpool. His other two Tottenham red cards have been against Milan in the Champions League and, well, Vitesse Arnhem in the Conference League so forget about that last one.

Four out of five in all and three out of three in the Barclays is still a trend, okay. Shut up.

There is also his current frame of mind to consider. We’ve all seen the switch flick in games with Romero and realised what might come next. “Oh, he’s ticking,” Gary Neville will caution on co-commentary with all the faux-concern of David Brent fearing a September wedding could be a washout.

Romero is going to start this game already ticking loudly after lashing out and going in two-footed, studs-ablaze on the Spurs suits after a deadline day squib.

He’s also been ill, which restricted him to 45 lethargic and painful minutes against City last weekend, and none of us is at our best mentally or emotionally when we’re poorly, are we?

It all has us wondering what’s the earliest in a game anyone has suffered the ‘save him from himself’ pre-red-card substitution? Because it could happen in the warm-up here.

Loads of goals or sarcastic absence of goals

Okay, so a bit cake-and-eat-it this one, but what we’re saying here is that it’s not going to be like 1-1 or 2-1. It’s either going to have all of the goals or none.

United’s last two Premier League games have been 3-2 wins and Spurs’ last two Premier League games have been 2-2 draws so we’re very hopeful it’s the former. Spurs have conceded at least twice in their last five games against Premier League opposition (one of those was Villa in the FA Cup)

For Man United, it’s four of the last five (again including a 2-1 home FA Cup defeat, in this case against Brighton).

Both clubs’ runs include conceding twice against Burnley, who have only managed to score twice in eight Premier League games this season. For added fun, one of the other six was also against Man United in one of what are now the Red Devils’ trademark 3-2 wins.

We also of course have the 2-2 draw between these two sides from earlier in the season, as well as that 4-3 Carabao caper last season.

But we must also prepare ourselves for the fact that these two sides are also capable of taking a game that appears to offer a near guarantee of goals – and also brilliant ones – yet instead provide none of that.

The Europa League final remains one of the funniest things ever to happen because imagine losing to Tottenham in an actual final, but it was also one of the most wretched football matches ever staged in which Spurs scored the scrappiest imaginable version of their favourite goal under Ange – cross from the left, converted from close range by Brennan Johnson – and then defended for their lives against a United side with absolutely no idea how or what to do to prevent the banter apocalypse about to befall them.

And you might say well that was such a high-stakes game for both sides it was bound to happen. But Spurs also beat United 1-0 in a crap league game last year where an early James Maddison goal was enough.

Spurs famously beat United four times last season, and United failed to score in three of those games. Remember, this was a Spurs team being managed by Ange Postecoglou, a man who considered the entire concept of ‘defending’ to be an act of craven cowardice that bordered on cheating.

Goals appear so inevitable here that, sure, it might be 4-4 after one team is 4-0 up after 17 minutes. But it’s also just possible these two teams are capable of stupidity that cancels the other’s out so entirely that it instead ends up the worst 0-0 draw you’ve ever seen.

Spurs win, or at least don’t lose

The boldest shout, because Spurs these days specialise in beating teams from daft little farmers’ leagues from unlikely-sounding countries such as ‘Germany’, while losing to pretty any proper (i.e. English) team.

But there are a few reasons to suspect it could happen here. Firstly, a Spurs win is funnier than a Man United win and that is a powerful force in the universe.

Spurs have also just emerged from a five-game Premier League run against Brentford, Sunderland, Bournemouth, West Ham and Burnley in which they took only three points and no wins. It’s vital and inevitable they outperform that pathetic return against mainly bad sides in the run of five games against mainly good sides currently underway against City, United, Newcastle, Arsenal and Fulham.

A win at Old Trafford to clinch it just two games in would be powerfully Spurs and enormously United.

There is also the perplexing fact that these days United don’t ever actually beat Spurs. We all know the four defeats from four games antics of last season, but they form just part of what is now a nine-game winless run for United against Spurs in all competitions.

Imagine that. Imagine going nine straight games against the stupidest team in the world without a single win; it would be enough to make you think that maybe you are in fact the stupidest team in the world. Now there’s a thought.

The last time Man United beat Spurs, Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick and Harry Kane was on the scoresheet. It was a long time ago, is what we’re saying here, and seems even longer than it actually is, which is a less impressive-sounding ‘just under four years ago’.

We also think Spurs will win because we think United will lose. Obvious, but there you go. Simple reason being that recent history tells us that United will always lose in ludicrous fashion at the precise moment they think they’re on to something.

No club turns more corners only to end up right back where they began than United, and three straight wins is just about perfect. We all obviously thought the Fulham game was ideal ‘come unstuck’ territory after beating City and Arsenal but think about it. That was too obvious. That was such an obviously different game from those first two of the Carrick Era that it would’ve been too predictable for it to go wrong there.

No, far better to scrape through that by the skin of their arse and then actually come unstuck a week later against Banter FC.

We do, admittedly, have some time for the counter-argument that what United will actually do is keep winning games until they eventually give in and, against their better judgement, give Carrick the job permanently only for results to then fall off a cliff.

Which leads us to the safest conclusion of all. The funniest outcome here is for Spurs to win, or at least not lose, or for Man United to win.