Preview

Formerly managerless Spurs take on title favourites Arsenal on Sunday in a North London Derby laden with almost too much narrative.

By Ian King

Spurs and Arsenal are undergoing very different psychodramas at the moment

The soap opera that is Tottenham Hotspur ended its last episode on a cliffhanger; a new head coach that no-one was expecting and then a short break before a derby against local rivals who are showing frayed edges in their chase for a first league title in more than twenty years. Welcome, Igor ‘The Firefighter’ Tudor. This is what is known as a ‘baptism of fire.’ Spurs remain without a win in any competition bar the Champions League in 2026. 

Arsenal’s last outing at Wolves also felt as though it was following some sort of script, although any storyline involving a league leader who’d been wobbling going to a team miles adrift at the bottom of the table, racing into a two-goal lead, throwing it away thanks to a – frankly hilarious – stoppage-time defensive mix-up and then completely losing their heads at the final whistle would probably be rejected by most producers as a little too unbelievable.

Arsenal have the upper hand in previous meetings between these two

Historically, in recent meetings and in their previous match this season, Arsenal have a clear upper hand in this fixture. They won their first meeting in 1896 – although it wasn’t a local derby then – have 90 wins to Spurs’ 67 over the intervening 130 years, have won six of the sides’ last seven meetings, and swatted them aside by a comfortable 4-1 margin at The Emirates Stadium earlier this season. They’ve even won the league at White Hart Lane twice, in both 1971 and 2004. 

This match could be an opportunity for two creative players with a bit of a point to prove

It was reported last week that, even though Spurs had given their players five days off to rest, Xavi Simons opted not to take it and carried on training anyway. In amongst all the doom and gloom around The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium since the new year, Simons has been quietly putting together a run of decent performances, and has the creativity to be able to unlock the Arsenal defence. 

That Spurs are expected to try out a three-man defence for this match could provide Arsenal with attacking opportunities, which could provide room for Bukayo Saka, who was one of the few Arsenal players to put in a decent shift at Wolves, even though he had to be withdrawn with a knock. Moving him into the centre seemed to work for Mikel Arteta, and it can hardly be said that there won’t be opportunities for him to potentially exploit. 

The Spurs injury list remains as long as ever, but Arsenal’s worries aren’t as bad as had been anticipated

WIlson Odobert has twanged his ACL and is now out for the season for Spurs, joining Destiny Udogie, Pedro Porro, Kevin Danso, Lucas Bergvall, Rodrigo Bentancur, Ben Davies, Richarlison James Maddison, Mohammed Kudus and Dejan Kulusevski in a treatment room which will presumably be having an extension built on it at the end of the season. 

Richarlison was spotted training this week, but there’s been little indication that he’ll be ready to start this match, so expect to see Randal Kolo Muani supporting Dominic Solanke up front. Cristian Romero is, as he tends to be rather too often, suspended. Tudor prefers a back three, so João Palhinha may join Radu Drăgușin and Micky Van De Van at the back.

For Arsenal, Bukayo Saka limped off against Wolves but is expected to be okay for this match, and there’s a good chance that Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz will return from injury too. Mikel Merino is probably out for the remainder of the season, while Max Dowman is due back some time around the end of the month, but won’t be ready for this match.

For both teams, this is a match being played at both the best of times and the worst of times

The North London Derby might have been renamed the “Oh, Do We Have To?” Derby in recent years for Spurs, and the ease with which Arsenal brushed them aside earlier this season is an obvious concern about their prospects for this match. 

But much has been made of Igor Tudor’s ability to quickly turn around a team’s fortunes, so there is a version of this storyline in which the new manager carves himself a little place in the club’s history by getting a result of this match. Who will turn up for this match? Will Doctor Tottenham be on call, or has that 999 call to Emergency Paramedic Tudor already performed some effective triage on them? 

And Arsenal are wobbling. They’ve only won two of their last seven, and their commanding lead at the top of the Premier League table has been whittled away. With Manchester City playing on Saturday night, it could be as little as two points by the time you read this.

In addition to this, their performance at Wolves – a team already essentially, if not mathematically, relegated – only added credence to the theory that they may not have the mental fortitude to be able to hold onto the top spot until the end of this season.

This is, therefore, a match with a full spectrum of potential outcomes. If Igor Tudor has waved a magic wand and goes with a formation that works for them while Arsenal put in a performance like they did at Molineux in the week, Spurs could take something from this game and blow a hole in their bitter rivals’ title ambitions. But if any of these outcomes don’t come to pass, we’d realistically expect Arsenal to do to Spurs again what they did earlier this season. 

The answer to this is probably somewhere in the middle. Ultimately, this is top of the table away to a team in a relegation fight, and that reality makes it impossible to predict much beyond a win for the title-chasers. I’ll go 1-0 to the Arsenal, but this really does feel like a match with a plentiful number of potential outcomes. 

(Cover image from IMAGO)

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