The first North London derby of the season will be underway at the Emirates this Sunday. After a very productive last two months, the Gunners are high on confidence but would be wary of their wretched record in the month of November. Tottenham are still unbeaten in the league which will serve as the extra motivation for the home side as they would love to end the run of their opponents.
It will be an exciting game with two quality teams locking horns and there would be some specific areas which will be deciding the outcome of the clash. Let’s take a look at some of those.
The tale of the two keepers
Both Tottenham and Arsenal do have world class goalkeepers in their ranks. In Petr Cech, the Gunners have one of the Premier League’s all-time great shot stoppers and Hugo Lloris for Tottenham over the years has stamped his class saving his team single-handedly on numerous occasions.
In a tie as crucial as the one on Sunday, the goalkeepers can be the difference between winning and losing. With the quality present in both the teams, the two goalkeepers would need to be at their best once again.
Can Tottenham’s rock solid defending continue?
One of the hallmarks of Mauricio Pochettino, since he came to England, has been his ability to shore up the backline. Since he arrived at White Hart Lane, Tottenham’s defence has got stronger and stronger and this season they have only conceded 5 goals so far from their 10 games.
Nevertheless, one of the teams who are masters of the attack are Arsenal as the Gunners have already scored 23 goals from their 10 games, behind Liverpool and Manchester City who have one more.
With the injury to Toby Alderweireld, Spurs would be using Erik Dier once again as the centre-back and it would be a tough ask for the visitors to stop the hosts from scoring. A lot thus would depend on how the defence of the visitors perform in the tie.
The midfield battle
The real strength of Arsenal lies in the midfield and with the presence of some big names, the Gunners do have arguably the best midfield in the Premier League.
Tottenham do have doubts over the availability of Mousa Dembele who twisted his ankle in the Champions League tie against Leverkusen which can be a big factor especially considering the fact that the Gunners are ready to welcome Aaron Ramsey and Santi Cazorla back into the starting lineup once again in the Premier league.
The team to command the midfield thus would have the upper hand in the fixture.
