This next week is Arsenal’s biggest of the season so far, with a Champions League tie at the Emirates against Bayern Munich and a trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea, all within the next seven days.
However, there’s no game that means more in a season to Arsenal or Tottenham fans than the North London Derby.
The Gunners begin the Premier League weekend four points clear of Man City at the top of the table after their 3-0 drubbing of Liverpool, while Arsenal drew 2-2 away at Sunderland.
Mikel Arteta will be hoping he can get some of his key players back from injury ahead of a busy winter period.
Filling the gap of Gabriel - What do they miss and how can they replace him?
The Gunners will be without one of their top performers, Gabriel Magalhães, for a while after the Brazilian suffered an injury during their 2-0 friendly win over Senegal at the Emirates.
If this was 24/25 then this injury would be an absolute disaster for the Gunners but defensive recruitment over the summer has meant they are in a much better position to deal with this.
What they will miss from Gabriel is a box dominator from aerial opportunities, which is especially key considering how Thomas Frank has made Spurs much better from set pieces than they were under Ange Postecoglou.
Arsenal do have enough tall players that if Declan Rice gets his delivery spot on then someone will get on the end of it.
Gabriel has played every minute for the Gunners in the Premier League this season but they were missing him from March until May last season with a hamstring injury and Jakub Kiwior came in and was superb, especially in the Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid.
One solution would be using Riccardo Calafiori as a left centre back where he played predominantly for Bologna and plays for Italy. The last time he played competitively for the league leaders in that role was the 1-0 home win over Newcastle in May when he came on for William Saliba at half-time.
The other option would be summer loan signing Piero Hincapie, who has switched between roles for Ecuador in that some matches he would play at left back and other he would play at left centre back. Hincapie did play 70 minutes in the left centre back role during the Carabao Cup win against Brighton.
Cristhian Mosquera is probably one of the more ready-made replacements in the defensive depth considering how he slotted in when Saliba was injured earlier in the season and for when Gabriel needed to come off.
The issue is that he is predominantly a right footed centre half meaning that you either move Saliba to the left, where he’s played for France before, or move Mosquera to a position that isn’t as familiar.
Trossard again Ole Ole
Leandro Trossard is quietly having a very good start to the season in terms of goal contributions. The Belgian has got eight contributions in fourteen games and four in his last five starts.
He got the winner in the last North London Derby in January, goals from him and a Dominic Solanke own goal cancelling out Son Heung Min’s opener.
Merino potentially playing as a number nine again?
It’s still unknown whether Viktor Gyökeres is going to be available for Sunday after missing Slavia Prague, Sunderland and Sweden’s World Cup qualifiers.
If the likelihood that he isn’t fit comes true then Arsenal should line up with **Mikel Merino**as the centre forward.
A different option because Merino is more of a false nine/deep lying forward and won’t be as physical with the centre backs like Gyökeres is. Having that physical presence is something that Arsenal missed in the Sunderland draw.
This season has shown a shift in how Mikel Arteta is approaching these big games with Arsenal, though it’s something that has some dropped points during the campaign to realise.
The two results are the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool in August and the 1-1 draw at the Emirates against Man City.
The Liverpool loss was bad because they had shown signs of being open in the first two games, having to score 90th minute winners to restore leads they lost against Bournemouth and a ten-man Newcastle. Though it took a stunning free kick from Dominik Szoboszlai to separate the teams, Liverpool’s recent form has shown that Arsenal should have approached the game differently.
Against Man City, the lineup was wrong from the start playing Merino in midfield with both Zubimendi and Rice due to the lack of creativity, which was apparent when they went in a goal down at half time with only four shots.
When Saka and Eze came on at half time, the game changed and Arsenal spent the majority of the second half in Man City’s half and, even though Gabriel Martinelli got that brilliant equaliser, you came away thinking that had Arsenal set up differently they would’ve won the game.
The biggest sign of “taking the handbrake off” came a week later at Newcastle, starting with Eberechi Eze in the 10 and despite it taking a late Gabriel header to win 2-1, Arsenal was much better throughout the 90 and their XG of 2.04 compared to their opponents 0.64 showed that.