Spurs vs. Fulham Odds
| Spurs Odds | -215 |
| Fulham Odds | +600 |
| Draw | +350 |
| Over/Under | 2.5 (-150 / +115) |
| Day | Time | Saturday | 10 a.m. ET |
| How To Watch | Peacock Premium |
| Odds updated as of Saturday morning via BetMGM. Get up-to-the-minute soccer odds here. | |
Tottenham dropped points for the second time this season in its 1-1 road draw with West Ham United this past Wednesday, with some cracks appearing for the club after an excellent start to the new campaign.
Now, Spurs faces another meeting with a London club when Fulham visits them in Saturday's Premier League action.
The Cottagers lost their last trip to North London last weekend in a 2-1 defeat at Arsenal, but bounced back to earn a 2-1 home win against Brighton & Hove Albion and hand their foe its first loss of the season. The opening five matches have been a success for Fulham, as it has managed two wins, two draws and just one defeat.
The market priced the Cottagers as the third-worst team in the EPL entering the season, but they've looked clearly better than that so far. While the same market had Spurs with the third-best title odds, it's fair to question whether that has held up through five matches.
Tottenham has a clear issue right now hindering it from dominating more games and until improvements are made, I believe it remains overvalued in the betting market.
Tottenham
Spurs have an ideal way of playing under manager Antonio Conte. It doesn't involve dominantpossession or smothering the opponentwith stale build-up play and camping in the opponent's half. Tottenham is at its best picking and choosing its spots to press, then creating opportunities in transition.
When it works, it is beautiful and effective. However, even as Tottenham beat Wolves and Nottingham Forest, cracks in this approach showed. Spurs had a real problem progressing the ball from the center backs through the midfield. The loss of Cristian Romero has left them scrambling to deal with pressure.
Tottenham's right side with Davinson Sanchez and Emerson Royal doesn't offer much ball progression and that leaves Dejan Kulusevski isolated at times on the right wing. Throw in an early season slump from Son Heung-min and the result is a side that's not exactly clicking.
Typically, Tottenham doesn't dominate shot totals, but does in shot quality. That wasn't true for parts of the Forest match and was certainly not true for most, if not all, of the West Ham match.
By The Numbers
- 18.0 — Average shot distance of Spurs' opponents, which is the longest in the Premier League.
- 18th— Tottenham has allowed the third-most shots per match this season, with only Forest and Bournemouth lower in the category.
Fulham
The Cottagers were by far the best team in the Championship last season. And even though the narrative surrounding the club was that it was a yo-yo team, the underlying strength of last year's squad has shown through thus far.
They went to Wolves and outshot them in a draw, out-created Brentford at home in a win and then held Brighton to just two first half shots at home last week. Throw in the impressive draw to Liverpool and it's very possible the market is just missing how good Fulham is at the moment.
The one concern here is manager Marco Silva's post-match thoughts after Tuesday's win, when he discussed Aleksandar Mitrovic neeing extra time to recover. He's been stellar to begin the season with five goals in as many games, but the Cottagers' defense is what has impressed me more.
Having conceded 8.2 xGA seems like a decent number to yield, but Fulham has played an above-average schedule of opponents featuring two top-six sides and Brighton. As shown in the numbers, the defensive work rate without the ball has been impressive for the club.
By The Numbers
- 15 — Joao Palhinha leads the Premier League in tackles won with this many in the category and pressures with 127 overall.
- 24— Defender Tim Ream and United States international has the most interceptions in the league.
Betting Analysis & Picks
There's a limit to how effective the strategy is of allowing teams to have the ball, but only getting bad shots can really be. It lowers the ceiling of Tottenham and makes it dangerous in matches against other big six sides. However, it does bring into question if some of these lower teams can pick them off with one or two moments of brilliance.
Fulham has had an extremely direct way of playing thus far and it's not going to be exposed to its foe getting over the top of the Silva defense. I think the Cottagers grind this game to a halt in the first half and hang around to stay inside the number by scoring one against an overvalued Spurs defense.
I've been higher than the market currently is on Fulham and am now a bit lower than the market is on Tottenham.
The Picks: Fulham 1H +0.5 (-130 or better) | Fulham +1.25 (-130 or better)
