Tottenham H v Arsenal: the oddities and the team

By Bulldog Drummond

• On the anniversary of Arsenal winning the FA Cup; Tottenham V Arsenal
• Tottenham v Arsenal: how the league ends and recent games between the clubs
• Tottenham v Arsenal: injuries, managers and number of trophies
• Tottenham v Arsenal: the last ten years and who has won what
• Tottenham v Arsenal how the season has panned out home and away.

The stats being bandied around tell us that Son Heung-min is the man that Arsenal really have to watch.   He is apparently only the second Tottenham man to score 20 Premier League goals in a season without any of them being penalties.  The other was Gareth Bale in 2012-13.  So maybe without penalties that Bale chap wouldn’t be quite the player the media like to suggest he is.

And what makes all this rather worrying is that Son has three goals and two assists in his last four North London derby appearances.

Kane however may be going off the boil having not scored in either of his last two games against Arsenal.  

But here is a bit of news for everyone like me who believes that all runs come to an end sometime… Arsenal have played seven league matches without a clean sheet since beating the Villa on 19 March.

Of course a lot of our scoring is down to Eddie who has been scoring with a certain regularity of late.  And here is one more on the subject of runs coming to an end.   Smith Rowe and Saka could become the first Englishmen to score for us home and away against the tiny totts since Ian Wright in 1993-94 season.

Now there’s a thought.

Date	Match	Res	Score	Competition
16 Aug 1993	Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal	W	0-1	Premier League
6 Dec 1993	Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur	D	1-1	Premier League

As to the team…

The Independent offers

Ramsdale;

White, Holding, Gabriel, Tomiyasu;

Xhaka, Elneny;

Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli;

Nketiah

And INews goes with exactly the same.

Sky don’t give us a team projection, which you might have thought they would since they are running the match in the UK, but they give us the whole squad instead!  Here it is…

Leno, Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, Cedric, Gabriel, White, Holding, Swanson, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Elneny, Odegaard, Patino, Smith Rowe, Saka, Pepe, Martinelli, Lacazette, Nketiah.

Now at this stage things are starting to become a little less interesting in that Sports Mole also offer the same line up.  As indeed does pretty much everyone else.

So there we are.  That’s the best we can do for a line up and a coverage of the game.  All we can do now is sit with everything that is crossable duly crossed.

But just remember, whatever the result, we are still above Tottenham in the league.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	36	28	5	3	94	22	72	89
2	Liverpool	36	26	8	2	89	24	65	86
3	Chelsea	36	20	10	6	73	31	42	70
4	Arsenal	35	21	3	11	56	42	14	66
5	Tottenham Hotspur	35	19	5	11	60	40	20	62