David Luiz: Arsenal's north London derby against Tottenham coming at perfect time

David Luiz believes Sunday’s north London derby against Tottenham is the perfect game for Arsenal to get their Premier League campaign back on track.

The Gunners suffered their first defeat of the season on Saturday, going down 3-1 to Liverpool at Anfield. Prior to that, they had won both their opening league games for the first time in a decade after picking up victories against Newcastle and Burnley.

Luiz believes entertaining Tottenham—who are also coming into the game at Emirates Stadium on the back of a first loss of the season, following Newcastle’s 1-0 away win on Sunday—is the ideal opportunity for the Gunners to put Saturday’s reverse behind them.

“There is no better opportunity than that,” said the Brazil centre-half. “We are going to play at home against a fantastic team, against a team who are going to fight with us until the end for the same goals, the same objectives. So, we’re going to do our best to win.

“It’s going to be a tough game and I’m looking forward to that. When you lose a game, you want to play another game tomorrow. They have signed new players, amazing players, so it’s up to us to win the game.”

Luiz has plenty of experience of playing against Tottenham from his time at Chelsea, but this will be his first taste of a north London derby.

“It’s always special to play football. I play because I love it,” he said. “I still have ambition to do big things in football. It’s going to be special for me, for sure.”

Arsenal and Luiz came in for criticism following Saturday’s defeat, but the centre-back has called for calm ahead of Sunday’s derby.

“We have to take the positives and work on the negative things,” said Luiz. “But I think everybody knows it is just the beginning of the League, not many clubs are going to go to Anfield and get points.”