Honours could be even in Unai Emery's north London derby debut

Premier League
Sky Sports Premier League & Main Event, 2.05pm Sunday

Arsenal reigned supreme in north London for much of the Arsene Wenger era before the balance of power shifted to Tottenham in the final furlong of the Frenchman's reign, and the Gunners are hoping Unai Emery can regain local supremacy.

Emery has made an early impact on the Arsenal supporters, bringing a much-needed freshness to the place, but a win on his derby debut may be asking a little too much in a tight fixture and the draw offers the best bet.

Three of the last four north London derbies at the Emirates have been 1-1 draws, and honours could be even again.

Both teams go into the game in fine fettle with Arsenal unbeaten in 18 matches in all competitions and third-placed Spurs, three points above their arch-rivals, arriving after their two most complete performances of the season which saw them beat Chelsea 3-1 and Inter 1-0.

The Chelsea victory was the first time this season Mauricio Pochettino has been able to start his favoured front four of Heung-Min Son, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane, who has become Arsenal's nemesis with goals in six of his seven appearances against the club who rejected him as a youngster.

And the Inter game was only the second time Pochettino used his all-Belgian centre-back pairing of Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen in a four-man defence in front of first-choice keeper Hugo Lloris. The other occasion was the 3-0 win at Manchester United in August.

Those are the positives for Spurs, who have legitimate excuses in injuries and World Cup fatigue for a mainly subdued season in terms of performances, even though their results have been impressive with ten wins in 13 Premier League fixtures.

Against that is the difficulty of this match, not only because Arsenal are on their long unbeaten run, but also because of the psychological scars after the Gunners dominated the landscape for such a long time.

Arsenal have scored in 45 of their last 47 matches against Spurs and have lost only once at home to them in 25 league matches while Tottenham have dropped a whopping 37 points from winning positions in this fixture.

Emery will be keen to unleash the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette in a bid to repeat their performance in last month's 1-1 draw with Liverpool, a team effort which was a major improvement on their early defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea.

However, Emery is yet to take a major scalp this term and Arsenal don't appeal as favourites.

Recommendation
Draw
1pt 13-5 general

Bet on this match at soccerbase.com

Premier League standings

Team news
Arsenal
Nacho Monreal and Danny Welbeck remain sidelined but Alexandre Lacazette has returned to full training.

Tottenham
Erik Lamela is a doubt but Juan Foyth returns to the squad after being ineligible for the Champions League. Kieran Trippier, Victor Wanyama, Mousa Dembele and Davinson Sanchez are still on the injured list.

Key stat
There have been just two away wins in the last 20 Premier League north London derbies.

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