LONDON – Tottenham Hotspur must play the "perfect match" if they are to stop a rampant Manchester City in the Premier League on Saturday, according to their manager Jose Mourinho.
City have stormed to the top of the league and have won 15 successive matches in all competitions.
The last time Pep Guardiola's side suffered a defeat was a 2-0 Premier League loss at Tottenham on Nov. 21, since when they are unbeaten in 22 games.
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Tottenham's form has deteriorated alarmingly since then and they have lost three of their last four league matches to drop to eighth and bowed out of the FA Cup in a nine-goal thriller that went to extra time at Everton on Wednesday.
"We beat them because we played so, so, so well in that match and that is the only way any team can beat Man City, you have to play very, very well," Mourinho told reporters.
"You make a defensive mistake and they kill you. You know it is very difficult to stop them scoring because they score all the time and you know that it's difficult to score goals because they don't concede, so you have to play the perfect match.
"Like we did when we played them at home. We played the perfect match and their level of confidence was not the same."
Playing 120 minutes in the FA Cup at Goodison Park was hardly ideal for Mourinho who said he did not want to even look at the data after that 5-4 defeat by Everton.
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"Yesterday when I opened the file of the Everton game data, I opened and in two seconds I closed it immediately because I didn't want to go through it and I don't even want to share that with my players," he said.
"120 minutes playing at high intensity, chasing results, playing fast and intense football of course was very hard."
Reuters