Tottenham v Arsenal - Opta Preview

It's that time of year when Seven Sisters Road becomes engulfed in a sea of red-and white as Arsenal journey to White Hart Lane to face arch enemies Tottenham in the north London derby.

The hosts should be fired up for this clash after surrendering their three-game winning streak against table-topping Leeds last time out - a defeat, which not for the first time this season, wrangled manager Glenn Hoddle. "The missing ingredient at the moment is a little belief, not in performance, but belief that we can beat the top five teams", he stated.

Additional failures to overwhelm Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United prompted the former England coach's comments, however, with the Gunners suffering an inconsistent spell of late, his fortunes may be about to change.

Arsene Wenger's side may have battled through to the last sixteen in the Champions League, but they have taken their foot off the gas in the race for domestic dominance. Successful score draws against Blackburn and Sunderland were hotly followed by a shock defeat at the hands of unfancied Charlton.

Yet Arsenal went down with all guns blazing that day and fired an astonishing 21 efforts at the Addicks' goal, with more than half landing on target. Spurs should be wary of the attacking venom in the boots of Thierry Henry and friends and could be advised to limit their opponent's time on the ball.

The Lilywhites are well equipped in the determination department and are one of only three Premiership teams to have contested more than 300 challenges this season. Nevertheless, they have maintained just one clean sheet in their last eight league outings and have leaked an average of 1.42 goals per game.

Goalkeeper Neil Sullivan will be seeking to put his Elland Road nightmare to rest by keeping the Gunners at bay with a repeat of his heroics in this corresponding fixture last year. Scotland's number one put in a man-of-the-match performance that night, pulling off nine magnificent saves to thwart the visitors. Only Patrick Vieira's 89th-minute header broke his resolve.

Both sides have been in free-scoring mode this term and have seen an identical 13% of their efforts hit the back of the net. It has been almost five years since the two neighbours fought out a goalless draw in N17, but with just two points separating them, it may be worth a flutter on a 0-0 outcome after 90 minutes with SPURSbet.co.uk - although suffice to say Hoddle would probably not be overjoyed with that result.

Mark Willis