Paul Merson has rubbished Tottenham Hotspur’s win over Manchester City, insisting that they could have lost 7-0 on another day, per Sky Sports News.
What’s the word?
Spurs recorded a 2-0 win over Pep Guardiola’s side at the weekend, boosting their hopes of a top-four finish.
They subsequently climbed into fifth-place, just four points behind Chelsea, but Merson was less than convinced by the victory.
Per WhoScored, Spurs had just three shots on goal throughout the 90 minutes, while City had 19, with six of the latter on target.
And Merson believes that Jose Mourinho’s men escaped with all three points.
He said: “It was a big win, but it just papered over the cracks, they are a million miles behind - it could have been 6-0 or 7-0 on any other day.
“They rode their luck, but give them credit, they stuck to the game plan and hung in there and got their lucky breaks. And a great goal, as soon as the lad hits it, he is running away as he knows it is a goal.
“But you cannot sit there and say, 'Mourinho is doing great.' It was just an absolute run around in my opinion.
“He was brought in to get in the top four and that was a big result towards that though.”
In form
Spurs are actually playing really well under Mourinho.
Per Jonny Blain, who works for the BBC and Sky Sports, on Twitter, Spurs have picked up more points than any other side bar Liverpool, Manchester City and Leicester City since his appointment.
Money talks: How much did Levy pay for each of these Spurs stars?
Merson, though, clearly has some sort of axe to grind and, while he says that this is a “big result” towards the top four, he clearly believes Spurs are way behind City in terms of their development.
As it is, though, Mourinho set up his team to counter-punch their way to victory and it worked.
Merson can criticise them all he likes but, really, he’s missing the point.