Oh blessed club football, welcome back! I’ve missed you so much. Tottenham Hotspur travel the few short miles down the road to the Emirates to take on their old foes Arsenal for the first time this season. Spurs are the clear favorites in this match, but that doesn’t matter a whole lot when it’s a North London Derby and pride is on the line. Spurs are unbeaten against Arsenal in their last six league meetings, but four of those meetings were draws. Spurs haven’t beaten Arsenal at the Emirates since 2010.

Lineups:

Match Date, Time and Location

Saturday, November 18, 2017, 12:30 p.m. (BST), 7:30 a.m. (ET)
Emirates Stadium, North London, UK
Match official: Mike Dean (yaaaaaaaay)

TV Channels

United Kingdom: Sky Sports Main Event / Sky Sports Premier League
USA: NBCSN
Canada: TSN 1, 3, 4
Australia: Optus Sport

Other countries can find their match listings at livesoccertv.com

Streaming

United Kingdom: Sky Go
USA: NBC Sports Live / fubo.tv (free 7-day trial)

Radio

Audio streamed at tottenhamhotspur.com (requires free OneHotspur membership), also often at BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 5 Live, and TalkSport

It’s the North London Derby

At a certain level, that’s all that needs to be said. But I’ll say more anyway.

In my heart of hearts, I kind of hate the NLD. Big rivalry games make me nervous. Winning is nice, but losing — especially to your rival — is never fun. Ironically, more often than not in recent years this particular match up has resulted in uninspiring draw that has left neither fan base particularly satisfied.

There’s reason to be optimistic if you’re Spurs, though. For starters, only the most partisan of observers would look at these two teams and not say that Tottenham are better right now. Harry Kane has scored five goals in his last six NLDs. Spurs are coming off of their first league finish above Arsenal in 22 seasons. Tottenham are rising, Arsenal have stagnated the past few years.

And yet I’m still ready to gnaw off my fingernails, because every part of me screams that this is a match that they can very easily lose. And they can! Arsenal are a good — if underachieving — football team with a lot of talent, even if it seems like half their team doesn’t especially want to be there right now.

A win today helps Spurs keep pace with Chelsea and United as the “next best after City” in the league this season, and also lays down a marker (after disappointing results against both of those sides away from home) that they’re ready to compete in the biggest of games. With their main stars rested and motivated, I’m pretty sure they can do it.

COYS!

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Have fun, and COYS!