It comes as no great surprise that Sir Alex Ferguson harboured immense disdain for teams from London, especially those from the north of the city. If Arsenal were the perennial pain-in-the-neck trying to break his team’s hegemony at the top, Tottenham were the small fry trying to gatecrash the big boy league, alternatively known as the Big 4.

In 2001, Manchester United and Glenn Hoddle’s Spurs played out a game that can lay claim to be one of the finest in Premier League history. Ferguson and his men travelled to White Hart Lane on September 29, but found themselves ambushed as the home team raced into a 3-0 half-time lead through goals courtesy Dean Richards, Les Ferdinand and Christian Ziege.

Most teams would have given up the chase and entered damage control mode. Not Fergie’s stubborn Devils, though. In the dressing room, the hairdryer was out and Juan Sebastian Veron recalls, “I’ve never been involved in anything like it. El Mister, Ferguson, was not happy at half time. He said we had no respect for the people.”

United responded in a style that only Fergie’s United could, scoring five goals through Veron, Andy Cole, Laurent Blanc, Ruud Van Nistelrooy and David Beckham in a frantic second half to win the game 5-3. The word classic gets thrown about very often these days, but this was a game for the ages.

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In danger of being cut adrift

The last time these two teams met in April, Mauricio Pochettino’s men scored three goals in seven minutes to deal a crucial blow to Louis Van Gaal and United’s Champions League hopes. Seven months later, Jose Mourinho is the big fish in town but his best-laid plans have gone awry as his team could be 12 points behind fourth-placed Man City by the time the weekend is over.

There is no doubt that United are in danger of being cut adrift from the Champions League race as the bookies’ second-favourite before the season have not so much struggled to get into second gear than failed to get the engine running at all.

A return of 21 points from 14 games with 1-1 draws in their last four home games, at a return of 1.5 points per game, can be labelled ‘pedestrian’ at best. Their last three wins have come in the cup competitions, with their last home win in the league win coming on September 24.

While fifth-placed Spurs have kept pace with the top four despite scoring six fewer goals than the teams ahead of them due to conceding the lowest number of goals in the top flight, United have scored only 19, eleven fewer than any of the clubs in the Champions League places and haven’t been able to keep clean sheets either.

The Brooding One

Call the cops! Jose Mourinho, “The Special One”, the manager hired by the upper management at Old Trafford is missing.

Gone is the brash, arrogant, chest-thumping narcissist that United thought they had hired and a brooding, sulking, grumpy 53-year old man child who loves to speak about “how well his team played” can be seen prowling the OT dugout, trying to figure out his best playing eleven.

It is clear that Mourinho has no idea of his best attacking combination and his front four has been anything but constant, chopped and changed more often than one of Hannibal Lecter’s victims.

An Armenian touch?

Perhaps a dash of Armenian would be the best solution to the ragbag that the United attack resembles at the moment. Henrikh Mkhitaryan finally got his first goal for the club against Zorya midweek in Europa, a lovely solo run and finish, and could be the panacea for the two-pronged problem that United currently face: an over-reliance on Zlatan Ibrahimovic for goals and Juan Mata for creativity in the final third.

With Spurs back in scoring form thanks to the return of Harry Kane, Eric Bailly’s return could not have come at a more crucial juncture. With Luke Shaw also pressing for a spot in the starting line-up, the United defence looks more like the one that started the season.

For the North Londoners, who have lost 19 times at Old Trafford – their highest at any PL ground – their prerogative should be to score first against an opposition not in the best of form at the moment.

The possible return of Toby Alderweireld should strengthen the defence; the reliable Belgian missing the previous six league games through injury. Vincent Janssen and Erik Lamela are ruled out through an ankle sprain and hip injury respectively, which would mean Harry Winks and Georges Kevin N’koudou are the only attacking alternatives in the squad.

The attacking quartet of Kane, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Son Heung-Min have been in fine form of late, breaking Spurs’ jinx at Wembley in mid-week. With the Europa League to contend with starting February, Pochettino will be driving home the importance of making as much headway in the race for fourth as possible to his charges before Europe’s second-tier club competition resumes.

It will be interesting to see if both the managers opt for a safety-first approach on Sunday with the three points more crucial to Mourinho than they are to Pochettino, given that the Portuguese is yet to win any of the ‘big’ games this season against Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool or Arsenal.

For now, the tie is balanced on a knife-edge and we could potentially witness a six-pointer humdinger in the race for the Champions League. And finally, a fact.

Harry Kane has scored against 21 of the 24 Premier League teams that he has come up against, only drawing blanks against Watford, Cardiff City and you guessed it, Manchester United. Come Sunday, that tally could be 22. Mourinho and co., teetering on the brink of a meltdown in the league, will desperately hope not.