Chadder View: Tottenham must rise to the challenge of facing Manchester City in the FA Cup
Matthew Chadder is a lifelong Tottenham fan who grew up just down the road from his beloved club in North London. He’s now putting his passion for Spurs into words with a daily fan view for Tottenham News…
If you want to be the best, then you have got to beat the best, that is the motto that Tottenham should be adopting after they were drawn against Manchester City in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
I will admit it, I was hoping for Maidstone United at home in the FA Cup fourth round. A nice simple tie that would allow us to play a host of our younger players without any hassle – you would think, anyway.
Therefore, naturally, when I discovered that we would be facing Manchester City, my first thought was one of apprehension.
It is pretty rotten luck to come up against the cup holders this early into the competition, but then as time went on, I thought about it more and realised that this is for the best.
You can’t win the FA Cup by beating six Maidstone Uniteds. If you want to win a cup, and if Ange Postecoglou wants to be the man to end a near-16-year trophy drought in north London, then we have got to be prepared to play and beat the best teams around.
What is most fascinating about this tie, is it is probably one of the few ties that could have been made where both sets of supporters are as equally frustrated as the other. It is worth noting that City are yet to score at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and this is certainly no easy task for Pep Guardiola’s side.
We will have several key players unavailable for the match, but with the Premier League and UEFA Champions League to consider, Manchester City will likely even the playing field by resting plenty of key players themselves.
Ultimately, I would rather lose to City now than make it to Wembley and be beaten by them there, and we would likely have had to play City in either the semi-final or final had we not been drawn against them now and made it that far into the competition.
Therefore, having a home advantage is huge, and makes this draw an even more favourable one. If we do get past the current holders of the cup not only will we have eliminated one of our biggest threats, but the confidence we would take from that going forward would be a game-changer.
It is no easy task, and in my opinion is arguably a 50/50 match or if anything, 60/40 in favour of City, but it is a match we would have had to play at some point along the way. There aren’t many other teams who I would have fancied to knock City out, and if we are going to win the cup, we would likely have had to be the team to do it anyway.
We shouldn’t go into this match with fear, but instead optimism, of what a win could lead to this season.
In other Tottenham news, Postecoglou could hand an opportunity to one Spurs gem who was spotted in first-team training ahead of the clash with Manchester United.