Next Saturday, 27th of September 2014, a somewhat fragilized Arsenal will entertain their neighbours and rivals of Tottenham at the Emirates Stadium for round six of the English Premier League on a match of major importance for both teams due to their recent misfortunes.

After a rampant win at Villa Park last weekend, Arsenal returned to their usual inconsistency when they measured forces with Southampton for the Capital One Cup at the Emirates Stadium last Tuesday. The Gunners were knocked out by a mighty Saints’ team and left the competition prematurely, something that left their boss, Arsene Wenger, clearly frustrated and disappointed. Arsenal had an apparent control of the match but displayed, at the same time, some lack of experience on their defensive sector, something that may have costed them this sour defeat. Wenger promoted the return of Diaby and Campbell to the team in order to give them some playing time, but and despite the team’s good start, Arsenal failed to be consistent throughout the entire match.

Last weekend, the Gunners had shown an excellent display of power as they controlled a strong Aston Villa, who had already conquered the three points at Anfield this season, but for some reason, Arsenal does not seem able to maintain the same level of consistency for two or three consecutive matches.

The clash against Spurs will be another test to Arsenal’s current form and it is fair to say that a defeat will cause some irreparable damage to the team.

As for Tottenham, after a fairly promising start, the Spurs have entered into a poor string of results following their home defeat against Liverpool. Pochettino’s boys conceded the second home defeat of the season last weekend at the hands of West Brom and such unimpressive result might have placed some extra pressure on the Argentinean manager.

The Spurs failed to win any of their last four matches and they cannot allow themselves to leave the Emirates Stadium with another defeat under their wings.

For the match against the Gunners, Pochettino will still not be able to count on the contributions of Walker and Townsend, who are currently sidelined due to injury.

The last time the Spurs and Arsenal met at the Emirates Stadium was on a FA Cup match and back then the Gunners won by 2-0 thanks to goals by Cazorla and Rosicky.

Given both sides recent performances, next Saturday’s match outcome is completely unpredictable, however, one might offer Arsenal some slight favouritism.

Arsenal

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - LWLDD

Tottenham

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - LDDLW

Possible Line-ups

Arsenal (4-2-3-1) – Szczesny - Chambers - Mertesacker - Koscielny - Gibbs - Arteta - Ramsey - Özil - Wilshere - Sánchez - Welbeck

Tottenham (4-4-1-1) - Lloris - Chiriches - Kaboul - Dier - Rose - Capoue - Dembele - Chadli - Eriksen - Lamella - Adebayor

Prediction

Arsenal 1 Tottenham 1