Premier League: Five questions heading into Gameweek 2

2. Do Spurs have enough to compete with Manchester City?

For approximately 70 minutes of their opening match against Aston Villa, Tottenham looked quite pedestrian. Attacking, but not quite enough in the final third of the pitch to put away Villa. Enter Christian Eriksen.

Rumored to be on his way out to a new challenge with Real Madrid, upon the Dane’s entrance into the game in the 64th minute, Eriksen seemed to be the puzzle piece that Spurs had been missing all afternoon. From there, the Spurs went on to tie the game up with a superb strike from Tanguy Ndombele and pulled ahead on a brace from Harry Kane. A formation shift from a 4-4-2 diamond to a 4-2-3-1 seemed to work wonders for a team that had struggled for most of the day.

This weekend Spurs will travel to the Etihad Stadium to face two-time defending Premier League champions Manchester City who are coming off a 5-0 thumping of West Ham thanks in large part to a hat trick from Raheem Sterling.

Everyone will remember the dramatic Champions League duel the two clubs had last season, Spurs winning 4-4 on aggregate due to their away goals and propelling them to a finals appearance, the one trophy that has alluded City and manager Pep Guardiola since he arrived at the club in 2016.

Will we get a repeat of that game? An open-ended, free-flowing extravaganza of offensive football? Smart money would say no. City had to go for it in that game. They’ll likely play it closer to the vest this weekend. But one thing is for certain. On their best day, Spurs can hang with anyone in the league. All things considered and with Eriksen in the starting lineup, I expect Spurs to put up quite the fight this weekend against the Sky Blues.