Sky Sports Pundit Offers His Predicted Score For Man Utd & Tottenham Games

Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson has made his predictions ahead of Manchester United and Tottenham’s festive fixtures against Sunderland and Southampton.

United head in to the Christmas games sitting sixth in the Premier League table but they get the chance to move level on points with fifth placed Tottenham and to within just one point of the top four when they entertain Sunderland at Old Trafford on Boxing Day.

Jose Mourinho’s side have rejuvenated their Champions League qualification hopes after securing their third consecutive league win with a 2-0 victory at West Brom last weekend thanks to a double from Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

United will be confident of making it four on the bounce against a Sunderland side that sit 18th in the division but they will need to be wary as former boss David Moyes will have a point to prove upon his first return to the club since his dismissal in 2014.

However, Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson feels that United are a different side under Mourinho than they were a few months ago and is predicting a comfortable home win on Monday.

Writing in his column for Sky Sports, Merson said

Man Utd v Sunderland – Boxing Day, 3pm

Manchester United have well and truly turned the corner, they are absolutely flying. Sunderland had a big result against Leicester but followed that up with a hammering at Swansea. Swansea are not in the same class as United so I can only see one winner here.

PAUL PREDICTS: 3-0

A win for United would really put the pressure on Spurs when they head to the South Coast to take on Southampton at St Mary’s on December 28th.

Mauricio Pochettino’s side made it back-to-back wins after a late strike from Danny Rose secured a 2-1 win over Burnley at White Hart Lane last weekend and they’ll be desperate to boost their top four hopes with a win next week.

However, Southampton are in good form themselves with last weeks impressive 3-1 win at Bournemouth seeing them climb up to seventh in the table but Merson believes that Tottenham will have enough to take all three points back to north London.

He continued in his Sky Sports column:

Southampton v Tottenham – Dec 28, 7.45pm

Spurs have got a hard Christmas schedule. If they come through this period with some positive results, they will be well in the mix. Southampton are another team crying out for a bit of consistency. They were comfortable in the end against Bournemouth and it was good to see Jay Rodriguez back among the goals but I’m not sure about them. I fancy Spurs to win at St. Mary’s draws are simply no good to them.

PAUL PREDICTS: 1-2

What do you think? Do you agree with Merson? Or do you think United and/or Spurs will slip up?