Tottenham Hotspurs will beat Barcelona tonight, here’s why

The good news for Tottenham is that Barcelona are in dreadful form. Their worst since Ernesto Valverde took charge last summer. This is their worst defensive start to a season for 13 years.

With Spurs desperate to win after slipping to defeat at Inter Milan, Wednesday’s Champions League Group B match looks far harder now for Barca than when the draw was made a few weeks ago. It is a chance to put things right, but also a potential bear trap for a wounded beast.

Barcelona have let in eight goals in seven league games, whereas by this point last season they had conceded just two. The fact they still sit top of La Liga on goal difference is due to their opponents slipping up too, rather than reaching a great level of performance themselves.

“It is a mini-crisis,” wrote Diario Sport, while Marca said Barcelona “are a team going through their lowest hours.”

Without Samuel Umtiti, who was sent off in the Group B opener, the defensive pairing of Clement Lenglet and Gerard Pique will be put to the test by a rejuvenated Harry Kane in London.

Pique is in particularly poor form, having committed several errors in recent games that led to goals, and again can be blamed for the Athletic goal, a step behind everyone else in the defence, playing Oscar de Marcos onside.

The midfield is non-existent at the moment, with Ivan Rakitic particularly poor against Athletic. The Croatian thought slowly and passed poorly, even wasting a good chance to win the game for his team at the death.

Arturo Vidal looks lost in the Barcelona set-up, operating in areas where it doesn’t look like he can help the side, while Luis Suarez is showing signs of his poor form that lasted for the first half of last season.

There might not be a better time to face Barcelona… but the bad news for Spurs is that Lionel Messi is angry.

Messi was already furious with the Champions League elimination by Roma last season, a 3-0 quarter-final humiliation in the Italian capital on a heady night, so much so that he delivered a speech about it to Camp Nou ahead of this season. Triumphing in Europe is his goal.

And the forward will be more fired-up to perform after this weekend. Messi came on in the 55th minute with his team trailing Athletic Bilbao, and the Argentine star forced the draw by setting up Munir El Haddadi to level with the clock ticking down.