Saturday will bring you one of the biggest fixtures in the Premier League season – Tottenham Hotspur Vs Arsenal. North London rivals and both teams contending for a place in the top four will deliver a heated match up. Both the sides have bolstered their attacking lineup – Arsenal with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Tottenham with Lucas Moura.
The first match ended 2-0 at the Emirates with Arsenal beating Mauricio Pochettino’s men convincingly. However, this is already a different climate in the late stages of the season and the Argentine manager is not ready to let the Gunners get the double over him.
Tottenham are placed in the 5th spot of the points table – 4 points above the visitors and a point behind Chelsea. They are on an impressive win streak at home after dominating both Everton and Manchester United over the past month. Jose Mourinho’s side got completely outplayed and the Spurs ran away with the 2-0 win at Wembley.
Arsenal have struggled in their fixtures away from home losing the last 2 against Bournemouth and Swansea City – 2-1 and 3-1 respectively. With just 13 points collected in 13 away games, this game will not exactly allow them to improve upon that record with ease. However, they are looking stronger than ever with the former Borussia Dortmund pair up top and dealing out a 5 goal thrashing to Everton last week.
This fixture has seen both sides score in the game on 34 occasions in the Premier League – more than any other fixture in the competition. However, there has been a clean sheet in the last two meetings (one each); the last time this fixture went three successive games without both teams scoring was back in December 1991 (a run of four, league only).
Arsene Wenger will have to tighten up the defence if he wants to register any points in this fixture. The Frenchman was quoted, “To be at the level of performance we want to be, we have to play our fluent football. What Wembley gives you is a good quality of pitch to allow you to play the kind of game we want to play.”
Team News
Arsenal might be without Petr Cech on Saturday since he has not trained with the team since his injury against Everton. Nacho Monreal is expected to return to the lineup along with Danny Welbeck with Santi Cazorla as the only missing player.
Both Danny Rose and Toby Alderweireld have returned from injury and the Dutchman might get featured in the starting lineup.
Predicted Lineups:
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris; Trippier, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies; Dier, Dembele, Alli, Eriksen; Son, Kane
Arsenal: Ospina; Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal; Wilshere, Xhaka, Mkhitaryan, Ozil, Iwobi; Aubameyang
Key Men:
Tottenham Hotspur:
For Spurs, it is undoubtedly going to be their talismanic striker Harry Kane. The Englishman is on his way to grab the prize of the highest scorer in the Premier League for the third time in three consecutive seasons and is in emphatic form. Pochettino will be relying on his prime weapon to get them a much-needed victory against another big name club in their next match after scraping out an important draw from their last encounter against Liverpool.
Arsenal:
The Gunners will be relying on a number of players to secure a win for them against their derby rivals in the next match, but all eyes will be on their new signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The Gabonese international showed glimpses of his brilliance in the last match against Everton and scored his first goal for the Gunners as well in their 5-1 win over the Toffees. Wenger will be hoping that he will show his true colours in the next match and get Arsenal a much-needed victory.
Betting Odds:
Tottenham win: 21/20
Arsenal win: 12/5
Draw: 14/5
