This is the first time these two have ever met and Spurs are clear favourites to win Group D, but with Conte having never progressed beyond the UCL group stage as a manager, they’ll need to keep up their strong home form (W7, L2) over their last 3 European adventures.
Tottenham reached the final of this competition in 2019 and have only failed to advance through to the later rounds in 1 out of 5 UCL group stages to date.
Marseille won this competition back in 1993 but their recent form is woeful, Les Phoceens finished bottom of their group in 2020, so they’ve lost 14 of the last 15 UCL games they’ve played, with their last win on the road 11 years ago. Although, OM did reach the Europa Conference League semi-final last season, bowing out to Feyenoord. They’ve had a great start to Ligue 1 sitting 2nd with 16 points and are still unbeaten only conceding 3 goals in 6 games and scoring 13.
With the Marseille squad, a who’s who of PL failures and prima-donnas a lot of these players will have played against Spurs over the past few seasons and with several ex-Arsenal players set to be involved, it might bring a bit of derby day spice to proceedings. Former West Ham favourite Dimitri Payet will captain Marseille and has the ability to perform in big games and Tudor always has the option of a large squad having used 19 players so far.
When looking at H2Hs we have no data as these two haven’t met before, so League form is all we have to go on. Spurs have started well and are still unbeaten (W4, D2) scoring a total of 12 goals. OM have started slightly better (W5, D1) although not of the same standard of opposition both managers will be delighted with how things are going.
Key stats
* Spurs 55%, OM 40% BTTS over last 20 matches
* Spurs have only lost twice in the last 20 matches
* OM won the last 4 games straight
* Spurs 55%, OM 55% Over 2.5 Goals over last 20 matches
* Spurs alone have averaged 9 Corners per match over the last 3 home games
In what will be an interesting game for the neutral we can only see it going one way, solely based on Marseille’s horrific away record I’m going for a home win, 3-1 with Kane and Son both scoring. Spurs will start quickly, and we would expect them to win both halves.
