Middlesbrough v Tottenham: Spurs likely to concede again in victory

Mike Norman
04 January 2020

Is Heung-Min Son worth a punt to score first against Middlesbrough on Sunday?

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Tottenham old boys Jonathan Woodgate and Robbie Keane face their former club in one of the pick of Sunday's FA Cup third round ties but Mike Norman isn't expecting a shock Boro win...

"Consider also Boro's much improved form of late, especially at the Riverside Stadium, and that Tottenham are yet to keep an away clean sheet under Mourinho, then backing both teams to score in a Spurs victory is surely a strong runner."

Back BTTS-YES / Tottenham Win @ 21/10

Middlesbrough v Tottenham
FA Cup Third Round
Sunday, 14:01
Live on BT Sports

Boro enjoy superb Festive season

Confession number one: I'm a Middlesbrough fan. Confession number two: I thought we'd really struggle this season.

Actually, we have struggled. Boro were as big as 25/1 to be relegated from the Championship and I was quite vocal in saying that price was way too big. And although relegation is now looking unlikely, anyone who knows how the Betfair Exchange works will realise that backing something at 25/1 and then being able to lay the same bet at under 3.02/1 isn't too shabby at all.

But it's hands up time. I certainly didn't see Boro's recent upturn in form happening, and from holding the view six weeks ago that we were heading towards League One with no positives whatsoever, I'm now fully supportive of Jonathan Woodgate's policy of keeping the purse strings tight and bringing through the youth.

Middlesbrough are unbeaten in six at the Riverside and they've lost just two of their last 11 league games. They go into this encounter having enjoyed a stunning festive period, winning all four matches including terrific away victories at West Brom and Preston, and keeping three consecutive clean sheets in the process.

Team news is virtually impossible to predict ahead of a third round FA Cup tie but if Woodgate keeps faith with some of the academy players then the likes of Aynsley Pears - son of Boro's legendary goalkeeper Stephen Pears - Hayden Coulson, Djed Spence and Stephen Walker won't let the team down.

Centre-back Daniel Ayala is definitely out, while new loan signings Patrick Roberts and Lukas Nmecha - both from Manchester City - should play some part.

No significant Spurs improvement under Mourinho

As all clubs tend to do these days Tottenham benefited from the 'new manager bounce', winning three on the spin under new boss Jose Mourinho and four out of five league games since sacking the highly popular Mauricio Pochettino.

But Tottenham's form hasn't been quite so good in recent week. The Lilywhite have won just three of their last eight matches in all competitions and away from home they've won just one of their last five, that victory coming courtesy of a stoppage-time goal at Wolves.

And you could argue that for all Mourinho confessed it took his 10-month break from the game to realise where he was going wrong as a manager and a person, it's took him a much less amount of time to slip back into his old ways - namely playing a relatively negative brand of football and seemingly blaming everyone bar himself after a poor performance.

You can hardly blame Mourinho for trying to tighten Spurs up however. The Lilywhites have kept just once clean sheet in 11 games under his management and away from home they've conceded at least two goals in a game a remarkable 10 times (all competitions) already this season.

Tanguy Ndombele and Harry Kane will miss Sunday's game after going off injured in Wednesday's defeat to Southampton, though Eric Dier could return from illness and Heung-Min Son is likely to play after serving a three-match suspension. Christian Eriksen will also be in the match-day squad said Mourinho on Friday.

Tottenham likely to win but odds make no appeal

Middlesbrough go into this game in the best form they've been in all season but it's difficult to get away from the fact that Woodgate has a very thin squad at his disposal and should he rest some players - which seems very likely - then an even younger and less experienced line-up than usual could take to the field for this FA Cup tie.

In other words, do I want to back Middlesbrough to win at 6.05/1? Although the heart is screaming "come on Boro", the answer has to be no. I can't even entertain the draw at 4.216/5 to be honest, simply because no manager wants one and Tottenham's bench is likely to be quite strong should the game be heading that way.

So with the aforementioned Dier and Son - 7/2 on the Sportsbook to open the scoring - likely to feature in addition to squad players Juan Foyth, Kyle Walker-Peters, Harry Winks and Erik Lamela, it's a Spurs victory for me, though at odds of 1.654/6 I can easily look elsewhere for a wager.

Still no away clean sheet for Jose?

Given I think Tottenham will have too much class for Boro then the only logical way I can see to enhance the price of the away win is to back Spurs to concede in victory.

And I say logical simply because - and I think this is quite amazing - Tottenham haven't kept a single clean sheet away from home in the league for more than a year. True, Sunday's game isn't the Premier League but I find that statistic incredible. Spurs won 1-0 at Cardiff on January 1 2019, since then they've played 19 league games away from home and conceded in all of them.

Consider also Boro's much improved form of late, especially at the Riverside Stadium, and that Tottenham are yet to keep an away clean sheet under Mourinho, then backing both teams to score in a Spurs victory is surely a strong runner.

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