Premier League Game of the Week: a North London Derby that could settle it all

There's an old tradition among Arsenal fans in the United Kingdom: celebrating the day that Tottenham can no longer catch Arsenal in the Premier League race. It's called St. Totteringham's Day and while its date changes every season it's always celebrated with gusto. That's the North London Derby for you: a rivalry of revelry (on the Arsenal side at least.)

In 2016, Arsenal fans celebrated St. Totteringham's Day on May 15 and went on to finish second in the league. (Longtime fans may remember that Leicester City, a team that's currently in the second division, went on to become improbable champions that season.) Everything looked bright for Arsenal: storied coach Arsene Wenger, then the longest-tenured coach in the league, was still in charge, and a title seemed within the team's grasp in the coming seasons.

It wasn't to be. Spurs finished ahead of Arsenal in the Premier League table from 2017 through 2022 and rendered St. Totteringham's Day an impossibility for years and years. When Arsenal finally outscored Spurs last season on April 21, it became one of the biggest St. Totteringham's parties in history.

Arsenal has comfortably bested Spurs in the league this season, but still, nothing is certain: St. Totteringham's Day has yet to occur. If Spurs wins all of its remaining games — and Arsenal loses all of its games in turn — Spurs could leapfrog Arsenal and flip the rivalry on its head again. It's unlikely but not impossible, and that makes this weekend's North London Derby one of the most fascinating games of the Premier League season. We saw how Liverpool fell apart once the title appeared to slip out of its grasp; a loss here against Spurs could see Arsenal do the exact same thing.

Arsenal, of course, needs to win to stay in the Premier League title race. But Spurs needs to win too: it's battling Aston Villa for the final guaranteed Champions League spot. (It's losing that battle at the moment despite hammering Villa 4-0 a few weeks ago.) 

This game could decide St. Totteringham's Day, but it could also decide what happens to each of these teams next season. Arsenal would love nothing more than to doom Spurs to the Europa League. Spurs would love nothing more than to doom Arsenal to another year of second best. Who will get what they're hoping for?

We'll find out on Sunday. In the meantime, here are the bets we're keeping an eye on in a North London Derby that could decide quite a bit.

Tottenham vs. Arsenal, Sunday, April 28, 9 a.m. ET, USA

Result. The last North London Derby was all the way back in September, and it was a doozy: things ended 2-2 after a Son brace and a Cristian Romero own goal.

With the last meeting between these two so far back in the past, it might help to look at recent form instead. Arsenal enters this match on the back of a 5-0 demolishing of Chelsea, but it's played three games in two weeks; Spurs enters on the back of 4-0 demolishing at the hands of Newcastle, but it's had a long rest to get over it. We still think Arsenal will pull through and are betting on it to win at -134.

Goalscorers. We're going to sound like a broken record here, but we're backing Arsenal's Leandro Trossard to get on the scoresheet once again. Can you blame us? He's been on fire in the past few games, scoring against both Wolves and Chelsea to push Arsenal forward. But our interest in Trossard isn't just down to form: it's down to Spurs's injury sheet. Ange Postecoglou is expecting right-back Pedro Porro to miss this game, and that's a huge blow; Porro has quietly been one of Spurs' best players this season. His replacement options are good but not great and may get found out by Arsenal's right-sided attackers. And who, pray tell, leads Arsenal's right-sided attack? Trossard, that's who. The stage is set for him to make his mark — he's at +220 to score.

Player Tackles. RIP to Bet365's yellow card betting pool: we had plenty of wins over the years banking on Spurs' notoriously fiesty defender Cristian Romero to get booked against the Gunners. (So many, in fact, that we're not at all surprised it got axed.) While we can't bet on Romero to be carded, we can bet on him to make tackles in this game ... and at +137 to make at least three, we'll be taking the bookies up on that. Romero is reliably physical in big games and shouldn't have a problem making his presence known.