As if claiming the derby day spoils and remaining on top of the Premier League wasn’t enough motivation heading into Sunday’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur, we could also create a little piece of history at the home of our rivals.
Last week's 2-0 win at Wolves ensured that we have now kept six successive clean sheets away from home, and set an all-time club record in the process.
The last player to score against us on the road was Nottingham Forest’s Taiwo Awoniyi, who netted a late consolation in our 2-1 win at the City Ground. Since then we have visited West Ham United, Burnley, Sheffield United, Manchester City, Brighton & Hove Albion and Wolves, and returned without conceding in all of those games.
That run put us within touching distance of the Premier League record of seven successive away clean sheets, held by two teams and occurred in the same season.
Chelsea managed it between September and December 2008 when Luiz Felipe Scolari was their manager and future Gunner Petr Cech was between the posts, and later that season Manchester United also repeated the feat between November 2008 and February 2009 during Edwin van der Sar’s league record 14 successive clean sheets.
However, if we are to pull level with those sides, we’ll have to do something we’ve never done at the home of our neighbours. Last season saw us record a 2-0 success at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but we have never kept back-to-back clean sheets in successive trips to Tottenham in our league history.
One man who will be up for the challenge is David Raya, who is on the brink of claiming the Premier League Golden Glove award. His 15 blanks this season are three more than his nearest rival, Everton’s Jordan Pickford.
Both teams have four more matches to play, with the Toffees next in action on Saturday against Brentford. Should the England stopper concede and David avoid the same fate at Spurs, then he would claim the honour, becoming the third Gunner to receive the prize after Wojciech Szczesny and Cech.
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