Paul Merson says: Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou is not under pressure, but Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag is | Football news

Paul Merson is back to preview the Super Sunday clash between Manchester United and Tottenham, continue live Air sportsand the Magic Man believes a defeat for United would increase the pressure on boss Erik ten Hag again…

‘Huge match in top-four mini competition’

Manchester United versus Tottenham is a huge match.

You have your minor leagues within the Premier League. One competition consists of Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool. In short, who of these three teams will finish at the top of the Premier League?

Then you go to the next league and for me you look at Tottenham, Manchester United, Chelsea, Newcastle and Aston Villa. You look at those five teams and think who is going to get fourth place and qualify for the Champions League.

Then you look at the bottom and there are about five teams at the bottom that are in trouble, and that’s another competition.

United against Spurs is a top match in the competition to reach the Champions League.

In my opinion, neither side wins the competition. But the aim is to qualify for the Champions League, and with that in mind this is a very important football match.

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‘Both parties will want to quickly get points on the board’

It’s a huge game. There will be people who say there are about thirty games left, but I disagree. You need points now.

In basketball, why do they play the first three quarters? Because you need to collect the points to get to the fourth quarter and have a chance to win the game.

Take a look back at Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea team in England’s past. Every time he won the league at Chelsea he was shown a flyer. He just blows everyone away early and that’s it, there’s no chance for the other side to recover.

They never came from behind and won their last ten games of the season. They blasted, crashed and blew everyone away.

This is where I think some people are missing a trick. Look back to Sunday and Manchester City vs Arsenal. That was another big game. had Arsenal lost the match they would have been five points behind Manchester City. That’s a huge gap, especially for City, at any stage of the season.

However, there might have been people marking the number of games remaining, but to me it doesn’t matter. You get the points when you can, at any time during the season. You need the points. The margins are so fine across the competition.

These are huge football games and if you don’t go into it with that attitude you’re not going to get where you need to be. It’s also how you win championships. That’s how you win the Premier League. Every game counts.

‘Busy will never be far away for Ten Hag’

I don’t think Ange Postecoglou is under pressure. I think he is doing well at Spurs.

They’re not top, I know, but no disrespect, they’re not one of the biggest teams in the league.

People will say I say that just because of my connection with Arsenal, but they are not the biggest club in the world.

On the other hand, Manchester United is one of the biggest clubs in the world.

They should at least finish in the top four with the legacy they have as a club.

That is why the pressure is apparently always on Erik ten Hag. He needs to get into the top four at least and that is difficult, as there may only be one place to win with Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

That’s why this is such a big match. If you lose to Tottenham at home, the pressure will increase again.

‘United must find consistency’

If you look at Manchester United’s results last season, they always had a nice game at the right time. They always seemed to have a game at home where you thought they would get a result. And they got those results at just the right time. A result to stick over the cracks.

Somehow, Manchester United need to find some consistency.

They could have beaten Crystal Palace last weekend. They had good chances to win the game, but to be fair, so did Palace.

If they had pulled off a win, you start to think they might come up with something somehow. But that never seems to happen with this United team and Ten Hag. They’re never going to win five, six, seven games on the trot.

They always seem to be against it.

‘Man Utd the biggest club in the world, but not the biggest team in the world’

Manchester United is the biggest club in the world, but not one of the biggest teams in the world. Far from it. It’s not even close, and that’s where we forget.

Being one of the biggest clubs in the world is different from being one of the biggest teams in the world. We probably have to get used to that at Manchester United. I still treat them like the great United teams of the past. They were champions year in, year out. Not anymore. They are lucky if they form a top four team.

It does make you think about where it all went wrong at Old Trafford.

It’s not like they built a new stadium like Arsenal and Tottenham. They are still in the same stadium and there are still holes in the roof. Why did things go so terribly wrong at the club? It’s difficult to answer.

It doesn’t really matter whether Ten Hag has the support of the fans. It doesn’t really matter if he has the support of all the people behind the scenes at Manchester United.

The club’s players must support the manager.

If that is the case, Ten Hag has every chance of success. The players are the most important thing.

‘There is not much wrong at Spurs’

If you take away Arsenal’s game, Spurs should have won every game.

They were very unlucky at Leicester on the opening day. if they had scored a second goal it would have been a defeat.

They then go on to slaughter Everton before being defeated by Newcastle. I don’t know how they got beat in Newcastle.

It wasn’t great against Arsenal, I know. But in the end they only lost by a set-piece goal. Now we’re talking about Arsenal as Manchester City’s biggest challengers, so the defeat isn’t the worst in the world.

Brentford are then comfortably wiped out. What I mean is that there is not much wrong with Tottenham.

‘Problem for Spurs will be assessed against Arsenal’

The problem with Spurs is that they are always judged against Arsenal.

It’s a bit like Manchester United. If Manchester City weren’t where they were, it wouldn’t be so hard for United to swallow.

All I’ll say about Spurs is be careful what you wish for.

Look at Westham. I was waiting to practice my dance on Strictly last Saturday and one of the floor managers came up to me and said Chelsea were 2-0 up. He was a West Ham fan. I asked him what was going on and his response was that they don’t even have Europe to look back on.

That really struck me. West Ham had some great times under David Moyes, but they fell away. Be careful.

At Tottenham I notice that people also have a short memory.

Things really weren’t good at Tottenham for a few years. But now I like watching Tottenham. I think they are a good team.

I don’t see Ange being in trouble. I really like him.

‘United a good match for Spurs’

Against United I think it’s a good match for Spurs.

I see there are a lot of goals at Tottenham, which is causing United a lot of big problems. Spurs will press and building from the back is not one of United’s strengths.

Ange plays one way. He goes to the fore and makes his team play to win football matches.

It doesn’t matter if they’re playing a lower team in the cup or one of the top teams in the Premier League, they’ll try.

That’s what I like about him too. He won’t sit there and play with 10 behind the ball. At Old Trafford he will go out and put pressure on Manchester United.

Watch Man Utd vs Spurs live on Sunday Air sports; starting at 4:30 PM