ENGLAND: Premier League
Date: 26-09-21
Time: 4:30 PM
Venue: Emirates Stadium (London)
It’s Arsenal who will play host this time in the 169th league edition of the North London Derby, and after a dismal start to their Premier League (PL) campaign with three losses without scoring, they have recovered to win consecutive PL matches 1-0. That means we could see the ‘Gunners’ record a hattrick of league wins ‘to nil’ for the first time since July 2020, a result boss Mikel Arteta would likely be delighted with in this huge derby that’s clearly an early test of both teams’ ambitions.
To do so, they’d have to achieve something that’s evaded them for seven seasons, and that’s win successive PL games against rivals Tottenham. They ran out 2-1 winners in March, and although the form guide will be discarded when these teams walk out of the Emirates tunnel, the hosts do have a comforting H2H home record, losing just once to ‘Spurs’ in the last 28 home PL matches (W16, D11).
Spurs themselves have only seen two different results all season, as all their hard work to earn three 1-0 victories to start their PL season was undone by back-to-back 3-0 defeats. The common denominator? Those defeats were both London derbies, and a similar result here would see Spurs lose three consecutive league games by 3+ goals for the first time in their entire history.
Still getting used to the Spurs hot seat, Nuno Espírito Santo shouldn’t look to his predecessors for any words of advice, as only one of the last ten Spurs managers to take charge of a North London Derby have won their first top-flight meeting with Arsenal (D5, L4).
Players to watch: Alexandre Lacazette will be ‘gunning’ to become the first Arsenal player to score in four consecutive home league fixtures against Spurs, whilst ‘one of their own’ Harry Kane failed to score against Arsenal in the last H2H – he’s never gone consecutive games without scoring against his side’s rivals.
Recent Stats:
- Arsenal’s form in last 5 matches: WWWWL.
- Tottenham’s form in last 5 matches: DLDLW.
PREDICTION: Over 1.5
