I’ll always take a draw in this fixture, just for the sake of not losing, but we really can’t afford another draw right now. Our unbeaten run is still nice, but we’ve gone from three consecutive wins to three consecutive draws

Er, right, we’ll move back to the league then, shall we? With the Arshavin situation finally clarified and the Cardiff game postponed, we have to remember that we’re a football team that, you know, plays football matches and such. I’m not looking forward to this game at all. Spurs have, Defoe and King aside, all key players fit, and are boosted by a number of new signings, including a new captain, and we’re going into this game with the weakest side I can remember us having going into a North London derby in the league. And our unreasonably long unbeaten record against them in the league has to go sometime. Our secret North London derby weapon, Adebayor, who has scored in all but one of them that he has played in (and in that game he assisted our only goal, eight goals in eight derbies overall) is in poor form. The last two meetings have ended in utter humiliation for us, and we need to destroy them, but I can’t see it happening. Not to say I can’t see us winning, we often seem to pull a result out of the bag in this game when form and performances hint to the contrary, but it certainly won’t be a comfortable game.

I’ll always take a draw in this fixture, just for the sake of not losing, but we really can’t afford another draw right now. Our unbeaten run is still nice, but we’ve gone from three consecutive wins to three consecutive draws, and in terms of the battle for fourth place we really need to get back to winning. Villa had a tough game at Blackburn but managed yet another away win (their run really is incredible), but Chelsea slipped up at home yet again and we now have the opportunity to go back to being only three points off the top four. Then the two teams directly above us, Chelsea and Villa, face each other in the next round of league fixtures later in February after the cup games, which is a definite chance to catch up regardless of the result. Portsmouth very nearly made it a great weekend of results for us, but even being 2-1 up with five minutes to go they end up losing yet again.

But it’s no good speculating about what other teams are going to do if we’re going to limp to draws with teams like Everton, West Ham and Cardiff. A win in this game would be a massive boost to this squad, along with the signing of Arshavin, who could then begin to make an impact by the time the next Premier League games are played on the weekend of the 21st of February, and then we could get on a nice roll. Up until we play the top three in the last month of the season, we’ve got games against teams like Sunderland, Fulham, West Brom and Newcastle, all winnable, while Villa take on United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton in the same timeframe. And during that time players like Walcott, Eduardo, Rosicky and Fabregas will become like new signings in Wenger’s eyes.

It’s over nine years since Spurs last beat us in the league. I think that’s probably the longest current unbeaten run we’ve got against any regular top flight team in the league, although that could be completely wrong. Since the beginning of the Premiership, in all competitions home and away, our record against Spurs is sixteen wins, sixteen draws and six losses. Could you imagine what it would be like to only beat your bitterest rivals six times in thirty eight meetings? During that time they’ve had about sixteen managers. In the same timeframe at White Hart Lane in all competitions, we’ve won five, drawn nine and lost five. Six of the last eight North London derbies at White Hart Lane have ended in draws. In charge of four different clubs, Redknapp has only managed to beat Arsenal twice in twenty eight attempts, both as manager of West Ham, and only one was against Wenger.

Team News

Diaby is both injured and suspended, so pretty slim chance of him being involved. Eboue is available (yay!). Theo is only a few weeks away from a first team return now. Fabregas is six to eight weeks away, as is Rosicky, allegedly. Eduardo should be back by the end of the month if recovery continues as planned. Silvestre is out for another few weeks. Arshavin will probably be on the bench, although a late decision will be made on his fitness.

There’s no mid week match so we’ll go with the strongest team available, although I use that term fairly lightly. With Diaby unavailable I guess we’ll see Arsene’s dream central midfield pairing of Denilson and Song *sigh*. The central defence conundrum continues, with Arsene pulling names out of a hat to see who starts. It’s been a different pairing in each of the last three games.

Subs: Fabianski, Toure, Gibbs, Ramsey, Wilshere, Arshavin, Bendtner.

Spurs

Redknapp spent most of January re-signing all the players that Ramos sold while in charge, and Keane is the most likely to start, as captain, of those players with Defoe out through injury. New signings Cudicini and Palacios should start. Bentley is suspended.