League leaders Arsenal will try to continue their recent North London Derby dominance on Sunday at home against fifth-place Tottenham Hotspur, who enter the fixture for the first time with manager Thomas Frank in charge.
Arsenal (8-1-2, 26 points) are unbeaten with five victories in their last six in the fixture, all played in Premier League competition. The last three matches finished as one-goal wins against previous Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou’s squads.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta believes his team has gotten the emotional approach right in those encounters, no easy feat in a fixture that can include overwhelming intensity.
“Yes, that emotion requires something else, and you cannot be too high, but, at the same time, that game demands that in every ball and every action, you have to be at it a bit more than in any other game,” Arteta said.
“We have found a really good balance, we played well, some days we have won, some days we’ve been a bit lucky as well to win, that’s fair as well to say. So on Sunday we need a really, really good performance to beat them.”
But one of the leaders of that effort, Brazilian centre back Gabriel, will be out for weeks, Arteta said, after picking up a knee injury on international duty. Several other recent injury absentees, including team scoring leader Viktor Gyorkes, will be late decisions.
