Marseille analysis with European football expert, Andy Brassell

As we kick-off the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, European football expert Andy Brassell, a regular on the pages and podcasts of the likes of The Guardian, Football Ramble and talkSPORT, gives us his insight into our first opponents Olympique de Marseille, who we face in Matchday One at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Wednesday evening (8pm).

The Tudor factor

"Marseille is fiery, no doubt about it! This a club that is perpetually in a state of high tension, and it’s been no different this summer. They lost coach Jorge Sampaoli, who did a great job in terms of getting them into the Champions League. They replaced him with Igor Tudor. So, you’d think, okay, Sampaoli goes and things are a bit calmer, because he was a combustible guy. But Tudor came in and basically said, in his opinion, that the players didn’t run enough! So, it’s been quite a difficult start for him being in charge. Marseille also lost two of their most influential players in William Saliba, who went back to Arsenal, and Boubacar Kamara, who knitted it all together. It was actually Andre Villas-Boas who made Kamara a defensive midfielder from a centre-back. He’s now moved to Aston Villa. Marseille have had to replace them, and Tudor has a very definite way he wants to play football. He did a brilliant job at Verona, again, very high pace, high intensity, press, press, press.

'These games will be huge occasions'

"What is clear if you look at the games they’ve played, particularly the home games, the crowd - who are always on edge and really loud - have got them over the line when they’ve been struggling. For example, they were down to 10 men against Nantes (20 August) but still managed to win. They shouldn’t have been able to, but they were inspired by the crowd. If you look at some of the players who’ve come in, there is plenty of quality in there. Matteo Guendouzi has done a brilliant job there and from an emotional point of view, Marseille really suits him. He’s a little unpredictable and, of course, he’s from Paris (PSG are Marseille’s big rivals in France, Le Classique) but Marseille really suits him. If you’d have said at the start of last season that he was going to get back in the France national team, people would have questioned it, but he’s been absolutely fantastic, really. The squad is still in a state of flux and the difficulty for them is if they have a bad start to the Champions League, it could all unravel, because it’s so important for them. If you go back to 1993, they were the first winners of the new-look Champions League, and it's a big deal for them in a city that is so obsessed with football. If you compare it to a city in England, you’re probably looking at somewhere like Newcastle, the whole city is about football, and that’s special. I can safely say, whether or not Marseille are playing well, their two matches against Spurs will be huge occasions."