Aston Villa supporters may claim their clash with Birmingham City is the tie of the third round in the Capital One Cup this week but everybody knows that the biggest story at this stage is Tottenham Hotspur being drawn against their North London foes Arsenal with the game taking place tomorrow evening.
With Spurs having gotten all the way to the League Cup Final where they were eventually defeated by Chelsea last season, Mauricio Pochettino’s side will be looking to go one better this term and what better incentive than to go out and defeat their less than friendly neighbours to kick it all off.
For Arsenal on the other hand, Arsene Wenger has failed to win the trophy, most infamously failing in the 2011 Carling Cup Final to Birmingham City.
Although always significant whenever these two North London rivals meet, the game has taken on extra significance for the Gunners following their two recent high profile losses to both Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League and Chelsea in the Premier League at the weekend.
With Olivier Giroud, Gabriel Paulista and Santi Cazorla all having seen red over those two games, Arsenal need to keep their discipline against Tottenham while producing a positive result for morale and momentum if anything.
That said, Arsene Wenger is expected to tinker with the line-up once again with a hugely important Premier League game away at Leicester City taking place on Saturday.
To spice things up ahead of the League Cup derby meeting, we’ve devised a list of five current Tottenham players who could do a job for Arsenal right now.
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Click on the image below to reveal the 5 Tottenham players who would flourish at Arsenal.
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Christian Eriksen
Since signing for Spurs back in 2013 as one of the major arrivals that was signed using the Gareth Bale sale cash, Christian Eriksen has proved to be the best of a bad bunch.
Completely outshining the likes of Paulinho, Roberto Soldado and Erik Lamela, Eriksen has proved to be far more dependable in his two years at Spurs so far with a wicked ability from set pieces and a knack of scoring important late goals last term.
The Danish international is a classy playmaker in every regard and with Arsene Wenger having taken his fancy to his fair share of those type of players in his time at Emirates Stadium, we’re sure that if Mesut Ozil wasn’t signed, Eriksen would’ve been someone he was keeping his eye on.
A criticism of Wenger at the moment is that he tries to deploy too many number 10 type players in the starting eleven but when quizzing our Gooners by the bar, they claim they’d rather have Ozil than Eriksen in their starting eleven.
Dele Alli
Acheiving accelerated chances in Spurs’ first team at the start of this season, you’d never know that Dele Alli is experiencing his first ever crack at Premier League football.
Signed from MK Dons who were playing League One football last term, it’s been some step up for Alli but this hasn’t seemed to faze him at all.
Tall at 6 ft 2 in and combative, Alli is something of a midfield all-rounder and has even been likened to Steven Gerrard in his playing style in the past.
With Arsenal far too heavily reliant on Francis Coquelin staying fit right now with the seemingly past it Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini in reserve, you feel a dynamic player such as Alli would be able to flourish down the Seven Sisters Road at Arsenal too.
Capable of doing a little bit of everything in the engine room, Alli’s stock is likely to rise even higher as the season progresses.
Hugo Lloris
Having now finally moved to address their goalkeeping situation in the summer with the capture of the world class Petr Cech, the days of feeble mistakes from the likes of Manuel Almunia, Vito Mannone and Wojciech Szczesny should be in the past.
Nevertheless, if Cech wasn’t signed, somebody that could’ve completed an equally admirable job is Hugo Lloris who has proved himself to be one of the top stoppers around since arriving in English football.
A fantastic shot stopper with a dominating frame, Lloris has opted to remain loyal to Tottenham despite their lack of qualification to the Champions League and his status as one of the best goalkeepers in the world and that’s credit to the player.
Given his qualities though, he’d more than fit in at Arsenal and what’s more, he’s French and Arsenal love players hailing from across the English Channel don’t they!
Jan Vertonghen
He may have been far more impressive in his first couple of seasons in English football but somebody who is still somewhat idolised at White Hart Lane is ‘Super’ Jan Vertonghen who is currently the vice captain behind the aforementioned Hugo Lloris.
The Belgian international is a natural born leader who organises and that is something Arsenal have been criticised for lacking of late.
When Gabriel Paulista was dismissed by Mike Dean for a lack of discipline against Chelsea at the weekend, captain for the day Santi Cazorla didn’t effectively have a word in the Brazilian’s ear to calm down and perhaps Vertonghen is somebody who could’ve more effectively remedied the situation.
Given the fact Arsenal were interested in the former Ajax man prior to the player plumping for Spurs, this also tells you that Arsene Wenger may have believed he’d be a good fit and after all, his international team-mate Thomas Vermaelen didn’t do too badly in his time at Emirates Stadium.
Harry Kane
While Arsenal fans may immediately scoff that Harry Kane isn’t good enough to get into their team, at the end of the day, who wouldn’t want a 34-goal striker in their ranks and especially Arsenal given their current predicament up top?
Yes Kane is yet to get off the mark in the Premier League this season but he’s been scoring for England and the goals will come for him this term.
Proving that he was capable of scoring all kinds of goals last term and against all level of opponents to boot, the Arsenal team would create even more chances for Kane to score with the likes of Mesut Ozil assisting but we’re going to cease the conversation there because our Tottenham and Arsenal contingent are starting to feel a little ill at the prospect of metaphorically trading players!
