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Tottenham v Arsenal: Wenger wants response in pivotal derby

Arsenal’s defeats to Swansea and Manchester United followed a reverse to Barcelona in the Champions League, and beating their neighbours may be the only way to keep the Gunners’ title hopes alive.

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Ahead of Saturday lunchtime’s north London derby at Tottenham, Wenger said: “Cech will be three or four weeks with a calf injury”.

“We made some mistakes and the team didn’t feel free to play the way they play”, Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino, whose side host Arsenal on Saturday, told the BBC.

He said: “Sometimes we lack this hunger to believe that we can be champions”.

Tottenham were primed to take advantage of Leicester’s 2-2 home draw with West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday and would have gone top on goal difference with victory at West Ham United but they went down 1-0 to end a six-match winning run.

Kompany said: “If you look at this result it could have been worse, although we are not happy with the result or the performance”.

“We crushed them in the first 20 minutes and went 3-0 up”.

“Hopefully this gives us enough confidence to know we can get results anywhere”.

“We had to make the decision before the game because he had a little groin problem but he declared himself 100 per cent fit, ” he said. If you really believe in yourself then you’re going to get there, I think.

“I thought this year they’d added a bit of steel with Cech and Ozil was coming into his own and I had a slight feeling that they might go on to win it but once again they haven’t disappointed”.

Seeking a first Premier League title since 1961, Tottenham missed out on a seventh straight league win.

According to soccer statistics expert Michael Caley, despite Leicester’s continued grip on the top spot, the victor, if there is one, of Saturday’s massive North London Derby will become the new favorite to win the League title – something that Arsenal has not achieved since 2004.

For Tottenham Hotspur, there was the chance to overtake Leicester and move to the summit of the Premier League standings for the first time ever outside of the month of August.

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“We lost to West Ham but it is not nerves, it is hard to play every game in the intensity or level we normally have”. I think this is a safe bet and I think we should get it easily.

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