The first North London Derby of the Unai Emery era at Arsenal Football Club is upon us. In the midst of a pretty unexpected eighteen match unbeaten streak, and with the visitors in reasonably good form also, the stage is set for an absolute cracker.
Having deployed a youthful side Thursday night in Ukraine, and with only a small handful of first team players part of the travelling squad, Emery's first choice XI are pretty well rested and should be well up for this one. The Gunners have only won one of the last eight league meetings with their north London rivals and will be hoping the Emery regime will bring about a change in fortune. That one win did come at the Emirates last season and in amongst a long undefeated streak, Arsenal will be looking to carry momentum into this clash.
Long term absentees Nacho Monreal, Dinos Mavropanos and Danny Welbeck remain in the treatment room, whilst club captain Laurent Koscielny may still be short having only made his comeback for the U23 side earlier this week. NLD debutants Bernd Leno, Sokratis and Lucas Torreira all look set to feature having missed the mid week Europa League game, and alongside more experienced Arsenal faces, Emery is expected to name much of the same Premier League side as the last home game against Wolves. Between the sticks, Leno will continue as he is personally hitting some great form now. Bellerin and Kolasinac will return to the full back positions whilst mainstay Mustafi also looks set to continue at centre half. His partner could be either Sokratis or Rob Holding. The former didn't travel in mid week so is probably the favourite to start but Holding was withdrawn on the hour mark against Vorskla arguably with the NLD in mind. Then again, it could be all three should Emery revert to a back three. Spurs deploy a back four generally, so its expected that Arsenal will as well, having only gone with a back three at the Vitality Stadium last weekend to match the hosts.
In midfield, we should see a host of changes back to the usual league shape and personnel. Lucas Torreira will partner Granit Xhaka in the centre of midfield. These two have formed quite the partnership and in the last big clash against Liverpool (Torreira's first big game) both were exceptionally good. After growing into the game, Torreira was outstanding and he will have his work cut out again with Dele and Eriksen in town. Xhaka will certainly have to muck in and dig deep to support Torreira but make no mistake when Arsenal have the ball, Xhaka should be looking to get it all started. Depending on Lacazette's fitness, we could see one of two things in attacking midfield. Ozil at ten is likely with Alex Iwobi on the right. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will start from the left should strike partner Lacazette make the XI. Upfront, we'd all love to see Lacazette return having been rested as a precaution last weekend. If he's not fit enough, Auabameyang will start up the middle and Mkhitaryan will come in on the right with Iwobi moving over to the left.
Spurs travel across north London also in good form. They absolutely turned Chelsea over last weekend and will be full of confidence. However, all form goes out the window in the NLD; its all about fight, desire, hard work and patience. Whichever team brings the most fight generally gets the most luck and will win this match. A draw wouldn't be the end of the world but for Arsenal fans, in our back yard (especially when Spurs don't even have their own back yard), we should be looking for all three points. The Spuds might settle for a point away from 'home' but we certainly wont. Mesut Ozil needs to turn up and turn it on for this one. Having been left out against Bournemouth, his team need his vision and creativity to get anything from Emery's first NLD. If he starts, he'll captain the team; even more reason for him to bring his A game. It's about time we get another win over Spurs and all three points would draw us in on the top four.
Expected lineup:
GK: Bernd Leno
RB: Hector Bellerin
CB: Shkodran Mustafi
CB: Sokratis
LB: Sead Kolasinac
CM: Lucas Torreira
CM: Granit Xhaka
RW: Alex Iwobi
CAM: Mesut Ozil
LW: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
ST: Alex Lacazette
Prediction: 2-1 to Arsenal, with Aubameyang to carry on his good run of form.
@craigbennett10
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