The Big e-Spurs Preview - Tottenham vs. Arsenal

The biggest North London derby ever? In league terms, it is in my lifetime and I'm sure that we'll never have heard White Hart Lane like it will be on Saturday.

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The key will be to play as title-chasing teams rather than it being about a local duel, but the fervour around the ground will make that difficult and play havoc with mental focus.

Arsenal seem to have lost theirs in recent games, backed up by an alarming confession from Alexis Sanchez that they "lack hunger".

On form you have to fancy ravenous Spurs, but the Gunners' tendency to be like Forrest Gump's 'box of chocolates' means anything could happen..

The Opposition

Full Name: Arsenal Football Club

Nickname(s): The Gunners

Founded: 1886; 130 years ago as Dial Square

Ground: Emirates Stadium

Capacity: 60,260[1]

Owner: Arsenal Holdings plc

Chairman: Sir Chips Keswick

Manager: Arsène Wenger

League: Premier League

Current Position: 3rd

Website Club home page

The Last 5 - Tottenham

Premier League - West Ham 1-0 Tottenham

Premier League - Tottenham 2-1 Swansea

Europa League - Tottenham 3-0 Fiorentina

FA Cup - Tottenham 0-1 Crystal Palace

Europa League - Fiorentina 1-1 Tottenham

The Last 5 - Arsenal

Premier League - Arsenal 1-2 Swansea

Premier League - Man Utd 3-2 Arsenal

Champions League - Arsenal 0-2 Barcelona

FA Cup - Arsenal 0-0 Hull

Premier League - Arsenal 2-1 Leicester

Stat Attack

- Tottenham have lost just one of their last seven Premier League games at home to Arsenal (W4, D2).

- However, the Gunners won on their last visit to White Hart Lane, which was in the League Cup in September.

- Tottenham's defeat by West Ham on Wednesday ended their run of six successive league victories.

Teams News - Tottenham

Tottenham midfielder Mousa Dembele is available after missing the last two games with a groin injury.

Dele Alli could start after he was only used as a substitute against West Ham because of a minor ankle problem.

Teams News - Arsenal

Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech will be sidelined for up to four weeks with a calf injury he suffered after going up for a corner against Swansea.

Cech will be replaced in goal by David Ospina. Laurent Koscielny has a damaged calf and has also been ruled out.

View of the e-Spurs Podcast Team

Jason's View

After a very very difficult night at the Boleyn, it was perhaps predictable to see the ‘bottled it’, ‘fluffed their lines’, headlines. For me, that was not the case. For me, we lost to a good side, unbeaten in 12 at home, in very good form with confidence high. We didn’t lose to a Villa/Norwich. They were better than us for those 45 mins, we were poor because they made us look poor. Nobody accused Chelsea of bottling it when they got hit for 5 at the Lane last year. Champions can lose games. Even Bayern & Barca lose games !!! Take it on the chin, learn from the mistakes and don’t over react, panic, or lose confidence.

Next up, Woolwich. The wanderers will arrive at WHL very much as underdogs, the polar opposite of West Ham. Low on confidence as admitted by Wenger, in awful form (2 wins from 7 PL games), and with key injuries to Cech and Kos-clownie. Claude and the rest of the fans full of venom for Ramsay, Walcott, Giroud, Mertesacker, and the Wenger In, Wenger Out hokey cokey dance is well under way. Even Pirate Bully is not happy. Poor Ty Is having to use his AFC branded shiny red earphones to drown out the rants of an angry Claude.

But, beware the wounded animal, and there were plenty of times in the 90s and 00s when they were streets ahead of us that the nature of the occasion meant despite any run of poor form, we were capable at times of raising our game, finding a performance, and at least match them on the day and take a point.

Even last year, where for 70 mins we battered them, it took until the 86th minute to win it, and despite dominating much of the game at this year at the Emirates , they still came back to take a point.

It’s nice to see some of the negative coverage of them, but I myself am not ready to laugh at them just yet. I prefer to wait until we have seen them off, rather than get too worked up telling everyone what we will do to them, and risk getting egg on our face.

No matter how poor they are, they still have top quality in Ozil & Sanchez, and if Ospina has a Fabianski style game, they still have the quality to land a few blows of their own. They are in very poor form, but are 3rd, just 3 points behind us. They are certainly not mugs. We must not under-estimate them. Last time we did that, we were 2-0 up with Mind the Gap T-shirts on !!!

We have to do what we have done at all stages this season, react to Wednesday’s defeat and bounce back. This Tottenham side are very capable of producing a performance worthy of doing just that. Play the game and focus purely on the 90 minutes, and put what it may mean firmly to the back of our minds. It’s one game, it’s not counting for all 10.

I’m confident we will do the business but expect a few nervy moments. Derbies invariable have them! 2-1 or 2-0 to Spurs. Hopefully, we’ll be partying on the streets of Bangkok afterwards.

Jon's View

So, West Ham fans got their wish and claimed their biggest scalp of the season on Wednesday night at Upton Park. However, their league position didn't change due to Manchester United's slender victory over Watford. Should Tottenham Hotspur claim victory in our most important game of the season on Saturday it will mean so much more.

The chance to move 6 points clear of Arsenal and to reach the Premier League summit is what's at stake on Saturday afternoon. Despite our loss, Tottenham have taken 18 points from a possible 21 - this is title winning form, regardless of the mini meltdown amongst Spurs fans in the aftermath of Wednesday. It's still all to play for! I can only see a home win at White Hart Lane on Saturday, and so I'm going for a 3-1 Spurs victory.

This one will hopefully go down in Spurs folklore and it'll also see the name Tottenham Hotspur on top of the league for the first time during the month of March since 1964! Let's do this!!

COME ON YOU SPURS!

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