The North London Derby promises to be a thrilling one this Premier League weekend, as Mikel Arteta's Arsenal will take on Igor Tudor's Tottenham Hotspur in what is a must-win game for both sides. Arsenal suffered a shock 2-2 draw against Wolves, which has led to the players and manager receiving heavy criticism for their "bottling" attitude during high pressure situations. Spurs, on the other hand, are in an unexpected relegation battle, and have brought in special short-term manager Igor Tudor, who is known for improving clubs who are in terrible form and bringing much needed stability
What Mikel Arteta said about Igor Tudor during his Tottenham vs Arsenal pre-match press conference
During his pre-match press conference before the Spurs vs Arsenal game, Mikel Arteta was asked about how big a challenge it is to prepare for a game against a new manager, and his reply to that is definitely one Igor Tudor might've definitely taken a note of.
The following was Arteta's words in the press conference:
On how big a challenge it is to prepare for a game against a new manager:
I think it's happened seven times already this season. We are getting used to it. We have analysed everything that he's done in his career. In different clubs, different formations, the players that they have available. From there, of course, we will have the capacity to adapt in relation to what the game requires. But the main focus is also on what we have to do to win.
During the same press conference, Arteta had also mentioned how the Arsenal players had reacted after their shock 2-2 against Wolves. The following were his words:
On how our players have reacted to the Wolves draw:
What I’ve seen is a tremendous reaction again and I’m not surprised at all. When you lose points in the last kick of the game again, in a very unpredictable manner, I would say, because to predict somebody with a 0.2 expected goals probability and one shot, to concede an equaliser in the manner that we did it, nobody can really understand that. But this is football and that’s the beauty of it, and that was a chapter.
We have a long season. Chapter 27 says, okay, we draw against Wolves in this manner. What I’m very interested in is the next one, it’s what we are made of. Ok, what do we do about this and how we write our own destiny from here and going forward, and that’s it. You have to react to that because life moves on, the result has to stay, unfortunate as it was. There is nothing that we can do, what we can do is a lot, it’s what’s going to happen next
Our prediction for Tottenham vs Arsenal
We feel that Arsenal are about to suffer a new-manager bounce effect against Tottenham in the North London Derby, and thus we are expecting Igor Tudor to earn a draw in his first game in-charge of Spurs. Unfortunately for Arsenal, we can early see pressure starting to build up on Mikel Arteta and the Arsenal players, similar to previous years when they were in favorable league positions and then went on to mess everything up owing to huge pressure.
Let us wait and see if Arteta and his Arsenal players will prove everyone wrong in the North London Derby, as it's a must-win game for the Gunners who can't afford any more slip-ups with Pep Guardiola's Manchester City chasing them down.
