the north London derby, with Laurent Koscielny in
contention but Hector Bellerin out.
Laurent Koscielny could return to the Arsenal defence against
Tottenham but manager Arsene Wenger will be without right-
back Hector Bellerin for Sunday's north London derby.
Centre-back Koscielny dropped to the bench as a precaution
against Bayern Munich on Wednesday due to a hip problem,
looking on as his team-mates suffered a chastening 5-1 defeat
at the Allianz Arena.
The France international is in with a chance of bolstering
Arsenal's backline when their near neighbours visit Emirates
stadium, although a groin complaint means the match comes
too soon for Bellerin.
"Koscielny may be back but Bellerin is ruled out
already," Wenger told his pre-match media conference.
Koscielny would be expected to start if fit, with Wenger once
again laying the blame for the Bayern defeat upon his defence -
as he did immediately after the match.
"When you play against Bayern they are Bayern," he said. "I
watched the game again and not a lot has changed since my
analysis after the game.
"I believe we created a high number of chances but we had not
our usual defensive performance. Especially on the first two
goals.
"They are maybe the best team in Europe but if we'd had our
usual defensive performance we could have repeated our
performance [from Arsenal's 2-0 win over the German
champions last month]."
Arsenal's prospects of qualification for the knockout stages of
the Champions League are now remote, but they remain
excellently placed in the Premier League - level on points with
leaders Manchester City.
"From one competition to the other - I believe in the Premier
League we have a strong confidence and we want to reproduce
it on Sunday against Tottenham," he added.
"They have always in my memory had strong teams. It will be a
tough opponent just like every year.
"They are a side that are strong defensively and can
play at a a
high pace in a committed way.
"They’ve done well. They've lost only one [Premier League]
game. They've had a few draws but overall they’ve looked
stable."
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