Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham Hotspur

Premier League • England

Ben Davies piles ‘pressure’ warning on high-flying Arsenal with Liverpool message thrown in

Ben Davies, Dane Scarlett, Harvey White Liverpool v Tottenham May 2022

Tottenham defender Ben Davies has warned Arsenal of the pressure of maintaining their winning run in Thursday’s crunch north London derby.

Both sides have suffered varying patches of form throughout the season but now collide with a place in the Premier League’s top four potentially on the line.

Indeed, Arsenal currently occupy the final Champions League qualification place. The Gunners sit four points ahead of Tottenham following the most recent results.

Arsenal beat 10-man Leeds United 2-1 at the Emirates on Sunday, while Tottenham earned a 1-1 draw away at Liverpool on Saturday.

Arsenal are in better form heading into Thursday’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Mikel Arteta’s men have won four in a row. Spurs, meanwhile, have won only one of their last four including another draw and a defeat.

Davies has therefore warned Arsenal that the pressure is on them as Tottenham eye a first win in two matches.

“It’s a massive game. Look, we can only do what we can control, and Arsenal have been on a fantastic run,” the Wales international told the Daily Mirror.

“But you can’t hide from that but there is a lot of pressure to keep it up and do it in the remaining games.

“We have to control what we can, try and win the game and try to win our remaining games and even then it’s not in our hands but we will see what happens.”

Tottenham were originally due to play the upcoming derby with Arsenal in mid-January. However, the Premier League accepted the Gunners’ postponement request.

Ben Davies urges Tottenham performance

Ben Davies, Cristian Romero, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Lucas Moura

As a result, the wait for the two teams to clash again has allowed them to become fierce rivals for a top-four spot, increasing the build-up.

For Davies, though, the defender urged a similar performance to the one which got them a point at Liverpool.

Spurs set up to soak up pressure and hit the Reds on the counter-attack. They in fact took the lead through Son Heung-min before Luis Diaz’s deflected equaliser.

“It has been building up to this for a while now,” Davies said. “Ever since it got postponed we were looking to when this game would come because we knew it would be important in the context of the season.

“For us now Thursday is huge. We know what we have to do going into it. There’s no hiding from that.

“We have to go out there and put in a similar performance to the game at Liverpool.”

Arsenal dreaming of huge win

Arsenal won the first north London derby of the season at the Emirates Stadium in September.

The Gunners hit their rivals with a first-half blitz. Emile Smith Rowe, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bukayo Saka all scored inside 34 minutes, with Saka and Smith Rowe also notching assists.

However, Son hit back and is in good form of late, having scored three goals in his last two games.

What’s more, Tottenham replaced then-manager Nuno Espirito Santo with Antonio Conte in November.

Despite a slow start, Conte has got Spurs in the hunt for a top-four clash and the stakes could not be higher.

A win for Arsenal will all-but guarantee their spot in the Champions League next season. Should Tottenham win, though, the gap will be back to one with two games remaining.