Tottenham v Burnley: Spurs concede, Spurs win

It's now four matches without a clean sheet under Jose Mourinho and that could well happen here again says Jamie Pacheco.

Tottenham v Burnley
Saturday December 7, 15:00

Mourinho learning 'Mour' about his players

Wednesday night was a reminder that things aren't always going to miraculously fall into place for Jose Mourinho. They may have had the lion's share of possession but Dele Alli's brilliant moment of inspiration for the goal aside they looked a bit flat in attack, while Paulo Gazanigga should have done better with the first goal and Moussa Sissoko didn't need to attempt to make that tackle which led to the penalty for the second.

It's all part of the improvement process and Mourinho will quickly be learning what he needs to work on and what system the team is better suited to playing.

Ben Davies is still out and it's interesting that for now it seems Mourinho prefers to play Jan Vertonghen at left-back, rather than Danny Rose.

A bad time to go on a bad run

It was back-to-back home defeats for Burnley over the past week. There's no disgrace in losing 4-1 at home to Manchester City but not many would have predicted that 2-0 loss at home to Palace last Saturday.

There's plenty of daylight between them and the relegation places but after this one, their next few matches are all against sides just below them in the table so now is not a good time to continue on a bad run or else they'll quickly be overtaken by those hovering around them.

Ashley Barnes was given a rest in midweek by Sean Dyche, starting on the bench, but should return to the starting line-up for this one.

Logical price on Spurs

Spurs are 1.44 to win here, which is pretty much what you'd expect it to be. They're higher up in the table, have won three of their last four at home to Burnley and are up against a side who lost their last two.

It's 5.00 the draw and that probably makes more appeal, if you're desperate to play this market. But then again, we're not. Spurs should win this but those sort of prohibitive prices, don't interest us.

'Yes' on BTTS looks a solid one

You can get odds of 1.63 about over 2.5 goals. With 71% of Burnley's away games this season going that way and 57% of Spurs' home games, you'd think you'd be pretty safe with that bet.

But at a bigger 1.84, you're probably better off going with off with 'yes' on the both teams to score market. It's the same 71% of the Claret's away games that have seen that happen and a bigger (than 'overs') 71% of Spurs' home matches where there have been goals at both ends.

It's worth remembering that since Mourinho arrived, Spurs haven't kept a clean sheet in any of those four games.

Spurs concede, Spurs win

But if we're going to take the view that Burnley can get one, we'd be silly to not take the far bigger 9/5 that both teams score, in a Spurs win. There was no disgrace in losing at Old Trafford given United played pretty well and that Spurs were a bit unfortunate to come up against Marcus Rashford in inspired form.

Tottenham have a good record when it comes to playing this lot at home. They've won seven of their last eight when on home soil across all competitions, as Opta tell us.

Prior to Wednesday, all those three wins under Mourinho were whilst conceding so it's worth going to the well once again at a generous price, before the odds-compilers cotton on to the fact that might be a pattern in Spurs' results for the next few weeks.

Alli the value to open the scoring

Harry Kane has scored three goals under Mourinho in four games and had a decent game from a team perspective on Wednesday, even though chances to score were few and far between.

Heung-Min Son scored the first goal under the new regime when he opened the scoring away at West Ham, his sole strike since the former Chelsea boss arrived.

But the only player with four goals so far since Mauricio Pochettino left is Dele Alli. If ever there was an example of a player needing a change of manager to have a new lease of life, it's him.

If you consider that it might be a three-way shoot-out between these three for first goalscorer honours, then it makes sense to go with Alli at the far bigger price of 13/2. It's just 5/2 that Kane opens the scoring, with Son at 4/1.