Although Tottenham Hotspur are a massive club in their own right, they are honestly used to being portrayed as underdogs against Arsenal in the North London Derby. Over the past couple of decades, they haven't been as successful as the Gunners in the Premier League, and while they began to shift that paradigm in the 2010s with the duo of Son Heung-min and Harry Kane, those two are gone and Arsenal are back on the rise in recent years under Mikel Arteta.
This season, Tottenham and Arsenal are in different places. Although Spurs are much better than the side that finished 17th in the Premier League to Arsenal's second last season, they are pretty fortunate to be in fifth, given how many issues they've had as a squad this season. Meanwhile, Arsenal are even stronger than before after a busy summer of transfers, and with Liverpool struggling, the Gunners are the best team in England at this very moment in time.
Even considering all of that, it's still pretty wild to see how much more Arsenal are favored at the Emirates Stadium this Sunday against Tottenham. Derbies are always tight, especially between these two, but even the unbiased analytics paint a grim picture for Thomas Frank in his first ever taste of the unique battle that is the North London Derby.
Tottenham are in major trouble
Opta have the most respected predictive analytics in the game, and they don't seem to be giving Spurs much of a chance this weekend. Per Opta, Arsenal have a 69 percent chance of outright winning this game, whereas Spurs only have a 13.7 percent chance of coming up with the full three points on the road, even in spite of the fact that they have wildly been much better on the road than at home this season. There is a mere 17.3 percent chance of a draw, so Opta's numbers overwhelmingly give Arsenal the advantage to outright beat Tottenham this Sunday.
It's such a big advantage when you compare it to the other Premier League fixtures this coming weekend, too. Spurs are bigger underdogs against Arsenal than Leeds against Aston Villa, Burnley against Chelsea, and West Ham against Bournemouth.
If it weren't for Nottingham Forest playing Liverpool, Spurs would actually be the biggest statistical underdogs of the weekend, and apparently Liverpool only have a two percent better chance of beating Forest than Arsenal do of taking down Tottenham. So as if Spurs didn't already have enough motivation to win, they now have something to place smack dab in the middle of their bulletin board.