Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta claims he has seen a ‘tremendous reaction’ from his players on the training ground after their shock draw against 20th-placed Wolves on Wednesday, and is raring to get back to winning ways when they visit rivals Tottenham Hotspur for their English Premier League clash on Sunday.
The table-topping Gunners were dealt a huge blow in the title race when rock bottom Wolves equalised in stoppage time, with the gap between them and second-placed Man City now just five points — the latter still have a game in hand at the time of publication.
Arsenal’s hunger to win
However, Arteta is pleased to see the hunger displayed by his charges in the build-up to the North London Derby. “What I’ve seen is a tremendous reaction and I’m not surprised at all,” said the Spanish coach at the pre-match press conference, before adding: “[This North London derby] is the most important one. It’s the one that is going to give us the chance to be closer to achieving what we want. We cannot wait to play.”
Mikel Arteta
A win would boost Arsenal’s morale as they head into this fixture having won just two of their previous seven EPL matches. Their opponents, meanwhile, come into this encounter with a new coach at the helm in Igor Tudor. Tottenham are mired in 16th place (29 points in 26 games), and are yet to win a single EPL game this year (their last win was against Crystal Palace on December 28).They are also going through an alarming injury crisis, but Tudor insists they have what it takes to topple their neighbours.
Injury-hit Spurs
“We trained with 13 [first-team] players. It is what it is, [but] it’s quite enough to achieve what we want on Sunday. I understand the importance of this game, everybody expects the three points from us,” said the Croatian manager.
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