Tottenham kick off their 2020/21 EPL campaign with a clash against Everton at Wembley on Sunday.
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Tottenham had a strong finish to last season’s campaign as they won five of their last eight matches to end the campaign in the sixth position on the table, pipping Wolves to the last Europa League slot, which was determined on the last day of the season. This will be Jose Mourinho’s first full campaign and his immediate target will be to qualify for next season’s Champions League by finishing within the top four.
He has sought to bolster his team by bringing in a couple of players that certainly add quality. Right-back Matt Doherty fits the archetype of a Mourinho player as he plays with a tenacity that should add some spine to the Spurs’ defence.
Like his counterpart, this will also be Carlo Ancelotti’s first full campaign and he will look to build on the team that had shown some improvements prior to the enforced break and never quite recaptured the magic after the resumption to finish 12th on the log, which in all fairness was a great improvement as he took over while they were dangling precariously in the relegation territory.
Ancelloti has also made some moves in the transfer market, signing Brazil midfielder Allan and Real Madrid forward James Rodriguez to complement their budding stars like Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, both of whom played well last season.
Tottenham have generally had good starts under Mourinho. One of their biggest challenge has been their failure to completely shut the door for their opponents after these good starts. The final game of last season against Crystal place, where they scored and conceded an equaliser in a 1-1 draw, is a microcosm of how they left so many points on the table by allowing opponents to get back into games in which they had taken a lead. This is something Mourinho was looking to address and it probably informed his signing of defender Matt Doherty from Wolves. He also had some misfortune with key injuries to his forwards last season. Now that they are all good to go, we can expect a strong start to the season from Tottenham and we fancy them to score the first goal of this game @ 1.68 with 1xBet as our initial betting tip.
Spurs forward Harry Kane was one of the players that Mourinho missed for prolonged spells due to injury. He did come back during the restart and did not take long to find his groove and ended up with a decent 18 goal tally for the season. He struggled for England in their recent UEFA Nations League matches, failing to score against both Iceland and Denmark and has come under scrutiny. A goal here on opening day will put to rest some of these concerns, albeit momentarily. He has a terrific record against the Toffees, having scored twice in four of their last five meetings. We are backing him to score anytime @ 2.05 with 1xBet betting app as our final betting tip for the game.
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