Premier League picks, predictions: Manchester United and Tottenham battle to prove they’re top four contenders |Max Sporty|

After last week’s main eventit’s now time for the junior college dustup between North London and Manchester. Arsenal’s 2-2 draw at the Etihad Stadium had everything you’d want from a clash of champions: high-quality football, understated drama, enough incidents to keep the punditocracy ticking over even the hottest international breaks.

Manchester United vs Tottenham, though, what even is that? If the early season is to be believed, not much. Tenth host 11th, the battle firmly for these sides to stay in touch with Fulham and Nottingham Forest before they even begin to think about putting themselves in the mix alongside the serious contenders for a top four or five spot. With the heavy number of the Europa League in its legs, do not expect vintage fare.

Again, perhaps the table deserves a closer examination. After all, one of the most notable oddities five games through the season is an impressive goal difference for Tottenham, their plus four clear of teams with overall healthier point counts such as Aston Villa and Newcastle. The case could be made that their goal return was artificially inflated by a convincing win over Everton, but isn’t crushing the lesser lights of the league the mark of a good team?

There are other such brands in the small sample size of data we have so far. Tottenham’s expected goal difference of 3.69 is the third best in the division behind Liverpool and Manchester City. Take penalties out of the equation and they have the fourth best attack and the seventh best defence, quite convincing numbers when they have already played Arsenal and Newcastle. The shots come for the side of Ange Postecoglu, intriguingly spread throughout the team with many falling to the right side of Brennan Johnson and Pedro Porro. At their best, Spurs look like a team with convincing balance, James Maddison able to drag a team to the left side, opening up space that can be attacked at the back post.

The case in point could be their first game of the season, where Leicester’s defense can’t help but shadow down the right because of the threat posed by Maddison, Destiny Udogie and Son Heung-Min. Such is the space that then opens up that Maddison could clip the ball to an unmarked Johnson, instead it goes straight into Porro’s path to head home.

Early in the season it may be but there is a lot that Spurs get right. They have regained possession in the final third on 42 occasions, Bournemouth on 34 are the only team in the thirties. Jurgen Klopp famously labeled good counter-pressing as better than any playmaker on the planet. Fortunately for them, Tottenham have a bit of both. Son and Solanke already have goals given to them by scared opponents while Maddison leads the league with 2.86 expected assists.

The big question for Tottenham is whether all this territorial dominance should be more. When you have Manchester City levels of possession and field tilt, you want to translate that into something at least comparable to the title favourites. The fear should be that Postecoglu’s system with players of Spurs-level talent translates into too many games like the north London derby, where Tottenham control territory and pass it quite neatly without ever really applying pressure in the penalty area. All that, and the back door is left open for the counter.

If anyone should test that theory it is United. About the only consistently positive aspect of their attack under Erik ten Hag has been their counter-attacking, give the likes of Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford an open field and you’re going to get hurt. The task for season three under this manager has been to change that and looking at their results so far you would question whether they have. Five goals from five league games, three of those coming in sweeping a Southampton side that crumbled after missing an early penalty.

Again, though, there are early season murmurs. This attack may not have found the net at Selhurst Park but they played well and put up 1.7 non-penalty xG. That continued an encouraging trend in their early games, United’s npxG of 9.59 comfortably third best in the top flight. Best of all, they take good shots, not a lot of bad efforts, and new signing Joshua Zirkzee in particular put himself in really good positions against Southampton and Liverpool.

At the end of last season xG painted an exceptionally bleak picture of Ten Hag’s United, one of Europe’s leakiest defenses with a paper tiger attack. Does everything change with a few additions from the fringes of Bayern Munich? It’s certainly too early to discount how bad this team was last season, especially when their early season slate, aside from Liverpool at home, was pretty favorable on paper.

Will these beginnings of underlying motivation translate into true top four tilts? In either case, what you’re asking is whether this team has the superstar talent needed to create separation from the rest of the top four cases. It is not an open and shut debate. If Bruno Fernandes or, as seems unlikely, as only two of his last six Premier League seasons have delivered more than 12 goals, Rashford catches fire then Ten Hag have the type of forward who can produce a string of game-changing performances. Pair that with a defense that actually pushes up as its manager seems to want and an anchor midfielder with any maneuverability, that could be something.

Spurs’ X-factor is altogether simpler: Son being Son. The Premier League’s best finisher over the past decade continues to do far more than most would with the opportunities he’s been given and gained creative slack under Postecoglu.

The glimmer of concern is that the 32-year-old isn’t getting the shots he used to, dropping from somewhere in the region of 2.5 per 90 minutes in each of the last three seasons to 1.4 this season. Indeed, against Newcastle, Brentford and Arsenal he only managed one, in that last game it was a tame effort straight at Ethan Nwaneri after 95 minutes where he couldn’t really get separation from Ben White. If Filo is not what he was — and it is certainly too early to discount a talent of his caliber — then the fear must be that Spurs lose their world-class talent and that a collection of good not great youngsters may. I absolutely do what it takes to secure what promises to be a hotly contested top four spot.

Then again, maybe Son will roar into life in time. And maybe the battle won’t need to be that slice anyway; if Spurs and Manchester United can do business in the Europa League this season, then there could be five Champions League places on the Premier League table. At the moment these two teams just feel a little too unrecognizable. Perhaps their meeting will shed greater light on their trajectory.

Scroll down for our predicted score line in this and every other of today’s Premier League games:

Premier League predictions

Saturday, September 28
Newcastle 1, Manchester City 2
Arsenal 3, Leicester City 0
Brentford 2, West Ham 1
Chelsea 2, Brighton 1
Everton 1, Crystal Palace 0
Nottingham Forest 0, Fulham 0
Wolves 0, Liverpool 2

Sunday, September 29
Ipswich Town 1, Aston Villa 3
Manchester United 2, Tottenham 2

Monday, September 30th
Bournemouth 4, Southampton 0