Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur meet at the Emirates Stadium in the first North London Derby of the 2017-18 Premier League season this Saturday.
Tottenham made an excellent start to the month with a convincing 3-1 thrashing of defending champions Real Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday 1 November.
Harry Kane was back in the starting lineup for the first time since our 4-1 thrashing of Liverpool in October, having missed the EFL Cup loss to West Ham and the 0-1 defeat at Manchester United in the Premier League.
However, Kane wasn’t a huge factor in the game as Dele Alli scored our first goal, assisted by Kieran Trippier, and his second, a solo effort that went in courtesy of a huge deflection.
Christian Eriksen ensured three points midway through the second half when the great Dane made it 3-0, before Cristiano Ronaldo’s consolation.
The three points give us a three-point lead over Real Madrid in Group H where we qualified on Wednesday as Borussia Dortmund were held by APOEL FC for the second time in a fortnight.
This means three points from either of our two remaining Champions League fixtures guarantees winning the group given our head-to-head record versus Zinedine Zidane’s side.
Domestically, we head into this weekend’s North London Derby joint-second in the Premier League with Manchester United, both of us eight points behind leaders Manchester City after 11 games.
Our 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace last weekend was important as it showed we can win after a scrappy performance and also after playing in Europe midweek.
Victory over the Eagles also meant we extended our lead over Arsenal to four points as they were convincingly beaten 3-1 at Manchester City before the international break.
Despite being ahead of our rivals it’s actually Arsenal who are the slight favourites with the bookmakers. Betfair currently have Arsenal at 2.56 whilst if you bet on Tottenham you can get odds of 2.94 today.
Arsenal are the hosts this weekend at an Emirates Stadium where we have drawn the last three Premier League meetings each by the score of 1-1, and have not won since that great comeback in 2010, from 0-2 to win 3-2 – almost seven years to the day we’ll be facing them this season.
Arsene Wenger’s side are almost out of the title race now, already 12 points behind Manchester City after their defeat to the league leaders. A win for us at the Emirates would add a huge blow to their top four hunt and Champions League football for next season.
The Gunners weekend in sixth place and three points behind Chelsea who currently occupy the final Champions League spot.
Harry Kane has been recovering over the international break from the hamstring injury that saw him miss our defeat at Manchester United. The England striker’s fitness is crucial heading into the weekend as it’s one position we don’t have a great deal of depth at.
Kane also has an excellent goal scoring record in this match and with the form he was in prior to his injury would have certainly put fear into the Arsenal defence that has not been so solid this season.
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