Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta could equal a 43-year-old club record when the Gunners welcome Tottenham Hotspur to the Emirates for Sunday's North London derby.
On the back of their unforeseen title charge in 2022-23 and return to the Champions League, the Spaniard has overseen another stellar start to the campaign in the English capital.
Arsenal head into the first North London derby of the season with four wins and a draw to show from their opening five fixtures, sitting fourth in the table with 13 points as a result.
The Gunners also marked their return to the Champions League with a 4-0 demolition of PSV Eindhoven in midweek, stretching their winning run in all competitions to three matches.
Since taking the reins in North London four years ago, Arteta has also led Arsenal to four victories from seven games against their arch-rivals, who won the first two meetings with Jose Mourinho at the helm.
However, the Lilywhites have only prevailed in one of their last five games against Arsenal - a 3-0 home win in May 2022 - and each of their last three trips to the Emirates has ended in defeat.
Should Arsenal come up trumps on Sunday, Arteta will become just the second Gunners head coach to mastermind four wins from his first four home North London derbies, and the first in the Premier League era.
The only previous Arsenal manager to do so was Terry Neill, who led the Gunners to a quartet of successive home wins over Spurs at Highbury between 1977 and 1980, starting with a 1-0 success in the former year.
Another pair of 1-0 victories followed before Arsenal triumphed 2-0 in 1980, but the Gunners' hot streak was then broken in a 3-1 defeat in 1982, the year before Neill was sacked from his post.
Since Arsenal's move to the Emirates Stadium in 2006, Tottenham have only ever won one Premier League game on their rivals' turf, prevailing 3-2 in the 2010-11 campaign after overturning a 2-0 deficit.
Spurs have also never kept a Premier League clean sheet at the Emirates, although the Lilywhites did post a 2-0 win at the ground in the quarter-finals of the 2018-19 EFL Cup under Mauricio Pochettino.
While Arsenal head into the tantalising derby in a rich vein of form, Tottenham have accumulated an identical points total under Ange Postecoglou, who has guided the club to their best start to a top-flight campaign in 58 years.
Owing to their superior goal difference, Spurs sit two places higher than Arsenal in the rankings going into Sunday's clash, which will also mark the first time in 33 years that both sides boast unbeaten records before the North London derby.
Sparks did not fly in that edition of the fixture, as Arsenal and Spurs played out a goalless draw at Highbury in 1990, but both teams have now scored in each of the last five Emirates battles.
Furthermore, Tottenham boss Postecoglou has insisted that he will not compromise on his attacking principles this weekend, vowing to "scare the life" out of Arteta's side on his North London derby debut. body check tags ::
