18/11/2025 - The North London Derby Preview “Derby Day Looms”

Arsenal vs Tottenham. A fixture to instantly put in the calendar. In recent years it’s been Arsenal who have had the advantage winning 5 of the last 6 meetings. But in a derby of this magnitude anything can happen.

Both sides come into the game off the back of a 2-2 draw. Spurs’ late doors bottle against Man United brought cheers from my car when listening on the radio, I could see the pain etched on Richarlison’s face after he thought he’d scored the winner and got booked for taking his shirt off. Now that can make anyone’s weekend. Arsenal on the other hand battled hard against Sunderland, they really tested us and although we dominated parts of the game we couldn’t come away with all 3 points. Coming out of the international break both teams need a bounce back win, 3 points for Spurs would take them 5 points behind Arsenal (haha). 3 points for Arsenal would take them 11 points clear of Spurs.

When Spurs appointed Frank at the start of this season, I wasn’t sure if he could get them out of the relegation fight that they narrowly escaped last season, but in all fairness, he is doing a job. Unfortunately for him, he’s discovering that you can’t fix the inevitable spursyness that happens in a season, that’s just in their DNA. Despite being in a nosebleed position in the league Spurs have just 1 point from a possible 6 losing to Chelsea AT HOME then bottling a win against United AT HOME.

Tottenham have now lost 41 home games since they moved to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2019. This is compared with the just 46 games Arsenal have lost at home since our move to the Emirates in 2006!! 13 years and 5 loses difference, and just because I can lets also mention that since 2006 Arsenal men’s team have won 4 trophies and Spurs recently brought in their first since 2007.

Anyway, let’s move onto what Arsenal need to do. Arsenal need a win, not only to maintain the gap to City but also to kickstart probably our most difficult week of the season. After Spurs, we welcome Bayern Munich on Wednesday, looking to all but confirm our qualification for the knock out phase, and then we travel to Stamford Bridge the following Sunday. As everyone knows the international break before a week like this brings fan nerves and squad problems…

We had 11 players on international duty this time round and David Raya was the only one of those players not to play and unfortunately the inevitable international break injury has struck. Gabriel Magalhaes has picked up a muscle injury while playing for Brazil. There are scans planned, but it could be very bad news for us. Not only will he miss the NLD but probably Bayern and Chelsea too. Coming into our busiest month of the year this is potentially the worst player to lose. He has been our player of the season so far getting goals and assists from set pieces. Arguably more important though is just the threat he poses at our set pieces. Teams know he is our target but often he cannot be stopped.

I would imagine Arteta will look towards Mosquera as his understudy; he’s shown his ability to be capable back up despite his error at Newcastle. We do have other options as well though. Ben White or Califiori back into the middle with Lewis Skelly coming in or we have Hincapie but now is not the right time for him to be thrust into the starting 11. Whoever is trusted to step in on derby day is up against the rat Richarlison, they will have to ready for a physical battle, quick counters and a good measure of cheating/whinging.

This game like I said means more than just the points on the table it really is about the pride of North London and as far as I’m concerned, we need to keep Tottenham’s ego in check and keep them in their rightful place… below Arsenal.

It’s a busy week coming up and I’ll be blogging my reactions to all three games, stay tuned.

COYG!!

The Northbank Blogger.

Predicted Arsenal Lineup:

Raya                          

Califiori                         

Saliba                                                        

Mosquera                                             

Timber

Zubimendi

Rice

Eze

Saka

Merino

Trossard