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Vieira talks up Arsenal ahead of derby clash

Arsenal will head into this weekend's north London derby against Tottenham buoyed by comments from Patrick Vieira that the current team are playing better soccer than when he captained the Gunners.

When Vieira left for Juventus in 2005, and his France team-mate Thierry Henry quit Arsenal for Barcelona at the end of last season, there were fears that Wenger's men would struggle to compete for major honors.

But Vieira, who in the course of nine years with Arsenal won three Premier League titles, is in no doubt about the quality of manager Arsene Wenger's current squad.

"Arsene has done some great things and the players are responding to him at the moment," the midfielder told Thursday's London Evening Standard.

"In my time, we had a great team. We played well and were physically strong. But this current team plays better football than in our day," he said.

"Whether that means they are going to win something is another story. But, whatever happens, Arsenal are one of the two or three teams in Europe who play the best football," Vieira said.

Tottenham have gone 19 games against Arsenal without a win. But under new boss Juande Ramos Spurs have lost just once in their last 11 games and on Wednesday ended Manchester City's perfect home record this season with a 2-0 League Cup quarter-final victory.

"It was the best performance since I came to the club and it sets us up for the rest of the season," Ramos said ahead of this weekend's trip to the Emirates Stadium.

Liverpool, left 10 points behind Arsenal and outside the top four following defeat at home to Manchester United, have a chance to restore the confidence of the Anfield faithful against Portsmouth.

However, the seventh-placed south coast club, whose push for European soccer suffered a setback when they lost at home to Tottenham last weekend, have been impressive away from Fratton Park this campaign, winning six out of nine on their travels.

Bolton Wanderers and Birmingham City will both look to pull further away from the relegation zone when they meet at the Reebok Stadium.

Manchester City will look to recover from their League Cup reverse away to Aston Villa with England Under-21 international Joe Hart given another chance by ex-England boss Sven Goran Eriksson to become his team's first-choice goalkeeper ahead of the likes of Kaspar Schmeichel.

Fulham and Wigan, both in the bottom three, have a relegation "six-pointer" to look forward to at Craven Cottage while English managers Gareth Southgate and Alan Curbishley go head-to-head when Middlesbrough play West Ham.

Reading, who risk being sucked into the scrap for top-flight survival, are at home to struggling Sunderland in tomorrow's other Premier League match.

Chelsea, six points off the top after losing to Arsenal, are away to Blackburn on Sunday which also sees Derby, six points adrift at the bottom of the table, at home to Newcastle.
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