There’s something oddly disconcerting yet heartwarming about pundits claiming that Arsenal could rip Tottenham apart on Sunday.

After our north London rivals lost 1-0 to Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, BT Sport pundit and former Spurs player, Gary Lineker, claimed that if they play like that against the Gunners, they’ll get ‘spanked’.

“If they play like that in the north London derby they will get a good spanking,” he said.

See.

The north London derby’s never sounded so kinky…

To be fair, Bayer are currently in 10th place in the Bundesliga and Spurs managed to make them look like world beaters. They could have scored more.

Likewise, Darren Lewis from the Mirror described the Spurs players as ‘rabbits caught in the headlights’ when they showed up at Wembley midweek.

“To be fair to Spurs they have been better away from home with displays of resilience at CSKA Moscow and in Leverkusen,” he wrote.

“But this? They looked like rabbits caught in headlights in their first game back at the national stadium.”

Danny Murphy also claimed that Spurs just simply won’t be able to cope with Arsenal if they ‘pile in’.

“Arsenal should tear into Tottenham from the opening second of the game. So what if they leave gaps at the back?” Murphy wrote for the Evening Standard.

“On current form, Spurs simply do not have the players to damage them, so why should they worry?”

It feels a little strange to have so many pundits and journos who have firmly been behind Spurs so far this season, backing us not just to win at the Emirates on Sunday but to humiliate them.

The downside to this is it gives the visitors nothing to lose. The pressure’s gone so if they get a result, it’s amazing; if they don’t, they didn’t expect to anyway.

Hopefully this doesn’t work in their favour.