Make no mistake; the first North London derby of the season
is more important than it looks on paper. So important in fact, that I’ve
waited right up until the last minute to cram as much thoughts and opinions from
my cranium into your computer screens.
Unfortunately for Gooners such as myself, the team’s
constant failure to deliver success over the past few years has allowed Spurs
(or Scum as it is known in my house), to catch up and have some success of
their own. It may have only been one Carling Cup, but it’s one more trophy than
we have had in a the past six seasons.
For some reason, Spurs fans believe that small amount of success
is enough to assume they are now better than us, by totally forgetting we secured
a historic league title – AT THEIR OWN BACK YARD – something that they will
never be able to replicate, and they know it. Suddenly 119 years of an
illustrious history goes down the drain because the last six years have
produced diddly-squat.
However, the harsh reality is that Tottenham are now
threatening to overtake us as the best team in North London, with a little help
from Adebayor, who has a prolific record in derbies – fingers crossed he doesn’t
score against us – and we all know what happened last time. I fear our dreadful
start will inspire Tottenham to believe that this can be the year they overtake
us in the Premier League. Of course, it can also have the opposite effect,
whereby Spurs will think we’re pushovers – which is simply not the case.
As if this fixture wasn’t crucial enough, a win for Spurs
will widen an already large deficit between the two clubs – and they have a
game in hand too. Suddenly the priority for the Gunners may have switched from
finishing top, to finishing fourth, to ‘just as long as we finish above
Tottenham’ (or Scum as it’s probably widely known at the Emirates). Only God
knows what will happen to our season after that.
I witnessed them stumble to victory against Olympiacos in
midweek, and it only worries me more and more about the team. The defence still
needs work. Wenger’s zonal marking system is clearly not working, and our
defending from set-pieces is still not good enough. Even after reading all this
stuff on the club website and matchday programmes about how much the defence
has improved and how different the approach will be at set-pieces, it’s clearly
having no effect and not working at all.
The Greeks’ defence was resolute from corners and free-kicks
and were organised when called upon. Thank God we got them with two early
goals. AOC is starting to prove he is well worth his £15m price tag. And Andre
Santos looks like a decent centre back. Arteta will settle soon and Mertesacker
is improving game-by-game. Panic buys? Star buys, more like. Capable of winning
the title? Let’s just wait and see.
Judging by the already existing team, we are nowhere near as
good as we were this time last season. Only Van Persie, Wilshere, Song,
Vermaelen and Szczesny are the players I trust nowadays. Andrey Arshavin has to
be the laziest footballer on the planet! He walked for the entire 90 minutes on
Wednesday and when he did get the ball, he never got into second gear. I expected
him to shine this season but he isn’t exactly giving out the right impressions.
Some other players don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Chamakh is quickly
becoming the next Nicklas Bendtner with his lacklustre performances. We need
the Chamakh attack back!
As much as I hate to say it, I simply can’t criticise
Tottenham a lot these days. It has been a somewhat belated but extremely
impressive start to their season. Emmanuel Adebayor has been a hit on the pitch
– if not with the fans so much – and this worries me. We all know at his best
he is lethal but if he plays like he did towards the end of his Arsenal days
that’s half the threat removed already. VDV and Luka Modric are shining so far
and Gareth Bale is a real force to be reckoned with. Their squad is oozing with
talent and I think our squad and our defence is no match for their team.
A win for Spurs would be a catastrophe, and a fourth defeat
of the season already will surely spell a premature end to our title hopes. Do
not underestimate the importance of this derby; it could define both our
seasons.
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