This coming Sunday, Arsenal will play their biggest game of the season, when they face North London derby rivals Tottenham at the White Hart Lane.
Yes, you’ve heard it right. There can’t be any game bigger than this for the Gunners taking into consideration of the situation they are in. After going through all the disappointments and turbulence, their season hangs on to this particular tie only where defeat is not an option for the Gunners.
Arsenal simply cannot lose this match. Their season has gone in tatters and the only consolation they can draw from an otherwise ‘yet another’ dull season is to finish in top four. And mind, the challenge is not a cakewalk either.
An Arsenal victory at the Lane will close the gap with the third placed Spurs to just one point, while a defeat will take them seven points adrift of their rivals and five points behind from Chelsea, provided the Blues beat West Brom.
Not an impossible job but with ten games to go, to bridge the gap from there on won’t be easy either.
And who knows the gravity of this match better than Arsene Wenger himself? The Frenchman was quoted in the press:
“Sunday is a very important game because it’s in the final part of the Premier League season, the outcome will give a big boost to the team who wins it.”
Yes, it will give a massive boost and ease the pressure to a huge extent. Arsenal haven’t won a game against the top six clubs, excluding Spurs, whom they defeated 5-2 in the corresponding fixture earlier this season.
At this stage of the league, with confidence had hit rock bottom, after the humiliating defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich in the Champions League, the Gunners need a strong victory against a top side to boost their morale and what could the bigger occasion be than winning the North London Derby?
The best thing is, they have every reason to cheer themselves up ahead of this fixture. Santi Cazorla’s brilliant match winning effort in the last match against Aston Villa not only brought a huge sigh of relief to the Emirates faithful, but it also maintained their good run in the league.
Arsenal are currently unbeaten in last five games and have won the past three. Therefore it is highly important for the club to keep that momentum going. The thing is, after this game, Arsenal have a relatively easy run of fixtures and those are very much winnable games.
Tottenham on the other hand have a tough March ahead of them, and by the end of this month, they could slip behind the Gunners, depending on the result at the White Hart Lane.
Consistency is the only demon that has impeded Arsenal from maintaining a good run of form in the league. There was a genuine fear among the Arsenal camp whether they could at all finish in top four this season. That fear will strike back to haunt again, if Sunday turns out to be a disastrous day for the Gunners.
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