Preview: Arsenal Women v Tottenham Hotspur

Our Gunners are officially back from the international break and ready to take on our local rivals Tottenham Hotspur in the Women's Super League.

Over 60,000 tickets have been sold for the N5 fixture, meaning it's the very first back-to-back sell out at Emirates Stadium for our women's side.

Last time around

The last time we hosted Spurs at Emirates Stadium, Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema and Rafaelle were all on the scoresheet in the dominant victory.

We have a score to settle this season, however, after suffering a narrow loss to our north London rivals at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in December.

Team news

Leah Williamson points at the camera and smiles in training

In his pre-match press conference, Jonas Eidevall revealed that Vivianne Miedema has suffered a setback and will require minor knee surgery. The Dutch international is expected to be sidelined for several weeks.

There were more positive fitness updates, however, for Leah Williamson, Victoria Pelova and Katie McCabe, who are all in contention for Sunday.

Amanda Ilestedt, meanwhile, is back with the squad but Eidevall said that "the game on Sunday will come too soon for her". Lina Hurtig will be absent, as will Laura Wienroither and Teyah Goldie, who are both still progressing with ACL recovery.

Emily Fox, Cloe Lacasse and Sabrina D'Angelo remain with their national teams for the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup and will be unavailable on Sunday.

Facts and stats

We have won all three of our Women's Super League home games against Tottenham Hotspur, scoring at least three goals each time. We also kept a clean sheet in our previous two
Our Gunners have won the last six home games in the WSL. Should we beat Spurs on Sunday, this will be the first time we have won seven consecutive home games in the league
All four of Beth Mead's goals this season have come on home soil. Our number 9 is the leading WSL scorer at Emirates Stadium with five goals
Only three of the current Spurs squad have ever scored against us in the WSL: Martha Thomas, Beth England and Drew Spence. None of those goals have come away from home
Under Robert Vilahamn, Spurs have picked up 11 points from their last seven away matches in the league.
We have opened the scoring in our last four WSL fixtures, against Everton, Liverpool, West Ham, and Manchester United. Previously, we achieved a run of 12 games in from March to October 2022 where we were the first on the scoresheet

What the managers say

Eidevall on Spurs: "If you’re looking very short-term and you saw Spurs from a pure results perspective this season, it’s a very improved Spurs.

"But I think you could also argue that it’s probably the same level of Spurs that it was two seasons ago when they were one of the teams challenging for a top-four spot in the league. It’s one of those clubs that has those capabilities of doing so."

Vilahamn on us: "We know that it will be a really tough game. We know the rivalry between the two clubs and we saw how much the supporters enjoyed the last game.

"I hope we can show that we can play good football and not go there to defend and hope for the best, we want to show our fans that we are brave enough and go for the win.”