Evening Standard
·15 janvier 2025
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·15 janvier 2025
Spurs last week produced their most mature display under the manager
Ange Postecoglou believes Wednesday's north London derby is "as big as they ever come" given Tottenham's underwhelming league position but the game feels even more significant for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal.
The Gunners go into the match 14 points clear of their rivals but on the back of cup defeats to Newcastle and Manchester United, which have dramatically reduced their chances of silverware this season and threatened the harmony at the Emirates.
Arteta's struggled to convert chances into goals in the 2-0 home defeat to the Magpies in the Carabao Cup semi-final before they were similarly wasteful in losing on penalties in Sunday's FA Cup third-round against United.
A third home reverse in a week would deal their title hopes a major blow and make this Arsenal's worst week since a 3-0 defeat to Spurs in May 2022, which helped their rivals to pip them to fourth place.
Arsenal welcome Spurs off the back of a damaging week
Action Images via Reuters
Postecoglou, though, is not convinced by the change in narrative around Arsenal's season and believes they remain one of the league's best sides.
"A week, 10 days and all of sudden a team people were saying were flying are struggling," said the Spurs head coach on Tuesday. "I don't buy into that. I still think they're one of the top teams in the country ... it's going to take a massive effort from us to knock them over."
Nonetheless, now might be a good time for depleted Spurs to face their rivals, with the feeling of a corner turned in the past 10 days or so.
While Arsenal floundered against Newcastle, Spurs produced arguably their most controlled and mature performance under Postecoglou 24 hours later in their own Carabao Cup semi-final first leg to beat Liverpool at the other end of the Seven Sisters Road.
Spurs were far more compact than in last month's 6-3 defeat to the league leaders and will take a lead to Anfield after Lucas Bergvall's 86th-minute winner.
It was a canny display in the circumstances and a blueprint Postecoglou wants his side to follow at the Emirates.
You’d rather hear that I don’t like defending, we’re open, that we have this ridiculously high line
Ange Postecolgou on his defence
"I still felt what got us the outcome in the end [against Liverpool] was that we started with a really high intensity...and then we finished really strong," he said.
"I think we've finished stronger in that game because we maintained a really high tempo in that first half. I think that will be important [against Arsenal] as well - that we start the game really well, try to play as high tempo as possible and then hopefully the physical conditioning we have allows us to get on top of them late."
It is easy to imagine that Postecoglou's Spurs might be the perfect opponents for Arsenal, who have laboured against five-man defences and would surely prefer a more open game, but the Australian was also keen to rubbish the narrative around his team's defending.
"You don’t want to hear my explanation, you’d rather hear that I don’t like defending, we’re open, that we have this ridiculously high line, that we get torn apart in every game. That’s the narrative," Postecoglou said, when told Spurs had the best defence on the road in the top-flight, with just nine away goals conceded.
Stopping Arsenal at set-pieces is key to Postecoglou's hopes of a first win in this fixture in three attempts, with Gabriel Magalhaes' header from a corner settling the game at Spurs in September and Arsenal twice scoring from corners in a 3-2 win last season.
Antonin Kinsky is set for his Premier League debut
Joe Giddens/PA Wire
"We haven’t put more emphasis on it, we’ve changed a few things around the way we’re defending and it’s working really well for us this season," said Postecoglou. "We’ve changed our set-up a little bit, the players have embraced that and for the most part it’s been really good."
Spurs' new goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky has already made an impressive impact and Postecoglou says the 21-year-old, who will make his league debut against Arsenal, has given "comfort" and "confidence" to the rest of the side with the way he handled non-league Tamworth aerial bombardments in Sunday's FA Cup tie.
The loss of winger Bukayo Saka, his replacement Ethan Nwaneri and now Gabriel Jesus, who will miss the rest of the season after damaging his ACL against Newcastle, have contributed to Arsenal's problems in the final third.
Postecoglou stopped short of sympathising with Arteta over his mounting injury list but can emphasise with Arsenal's profligacy in front of goal.
"We’re guilty of that too at times," he said. "We’ve had some moments where we’ve been wasteful this year whether its games we should have put away and we didn’t, or other games we’ve had really good chances and we haven’t taken them and the opposition go up and score.
"It’s still the hardest part of the game to solve for everyone."
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