Arsenal v Tottenham: a little bit of perspective

43 Replies to “Arsenal v Tottenham: a little bit of perspective”

1. 10th September 1960 was my first Arsenal match at Highbury. Spurs took a 2-0 lead in the first half. There was a great revival in the second half, with David Herd and Gerry Ward scoring in front of the North Bank. The latter, in particular, was a wonderful goal from a first time shot from outside the box, which flew into the top corner. (a shame that there was no TV to record it).

   We were well on top at that stage, but then from a rare attack, Spurs scored the third goal, late in the game. Allen scored after the referee ignored a blatant foul on Jack Kelsey and allowed play to continue, with our keeper out of position and effectively out of the game! How some things don’t change!

   This was, of course a successful season for Spurs, who won the “double”. There cannot be many people still alive who have seen them win the League.

2. And the point of this is?

3. Perspective is required but not something that you get in football! Everything is sensational, unbelievable or abysmal or appalling. At present the two teams are pretty even, with Tottenham slightly better because they are a well managed ‘team’ and Arsenal have Wenger who, as we all know, is yesterday’s man.
   What I don’t understand is how Arsenal have failed so dismally to challenge for the league recently with all their massive resources and income; during this period Tottenham with 50% of Arsenal’s income have managed to get closer. Neither team can challenge the Sheikh Mansour team, but Tottenham will give it a good go; Arsenal won’t. Arsenal can buy ‘world class’ players like Ozil and Sanchez and pay them enormous wages – Tottenham can’t. Walcott is apparently on £50K more per week than Tottenham’s highest earner. He gets this for playing in the League Cup and Europa League.
   The wage bill at Arsenal is double that at Tottenham. Give that some thought. How is it possible to be able to attract the best talent in an industry, but be not as good as a business that cannot? If this was Tesco and Sainsbury everyone at Tesco would have been sacked from the board, executives, senior management. At Arsenal, you get new contracts. Arsenal are stale; Tottenham are vibrant. Arsenal are treading water; Tottenham have a vision. The end result of this is that in relative terms a small business, half the size of the Mighty Arsenal, has caught it up and surpassed it. During this time, Arsenal don’t seem to have done anything to stop this happening. So the perspective is that Tottenham are currently a slightly better team; the worry for Arsenal is that the vision and hunger to succeed may mean that slowly but surely they start challenging their status as the ‘biggest’ club in North London. Arsenal should win on Saturday as they are at home where they haven’t dropped a point all season and rarely lose to Tottenham. If they do, will it make any difference to the scheme of things? Will they be any closer to the Sheikh Mansour team? Will their ambition change?

4. In the game against MC,Sanchez did a couple of stepovers before releasing the ball. It was unfortunately intercepted by a MC guy. Sterling went on the rampage and passed .The ball narrowly missed another Blue.
   Sanchez is not the only one to lose the ball. There are others as well.
   Wenger better get Kane tightly marked other wise he will score and win the game for Spuds.No player is unmarkable/unplayable. If he aint careful with his defence,then Kane would join Rooney/Droba,etc to heap misery on the gunners.

5. Ah Tg, that’s the issue isn’t it? If you don’t get the point, and yet you are reading, what can be said?

6. Its funny that despite the predictions of Tottenham being too broke to buy players (after investing all the monies available Olin the stadium project), certainly heard this day in day out on untold up till the last week of the summer transfer window, they still went ahead to spend more than arsenal did in freshing up their squad

7. Amos – what point are you making? Tottenham brought in more money than they spent. They have basically been doing this for a decade ever since they sold Berbatov and Carrick; then Modric and Bale. Arsenal unusually this season made a profit on transfers having spent about £100m the previous season.

8. why do you choose an arbitrary point in 2013 to go to?

   You could have chosen any arbitrary point you wanted. Like for instance the start 2014 – 15 season. That would have made a lot more sense, actually. Start of the Pochettino reign, most recent so most relevant. But lo, what do I see? By doing this most logical of things I see that in this time span Arsenal have only won one game, and that was in the League Cup. Suddenly your arbitrary choice makes more sense! Arsenal haven’t won a league game since Pochettino took over at Spurs.

   There’s nothing quite so funny as an Arsenal fan pretending to be objective while patently twisting facts and figures ???

9. Looks like Verthongen has miraculously recovered from injury now to join a long list of Spurs players too crocked to play for their countries but who now look as though they will be fit enough to play in the Arsenal match. Amazing!!!

10. S-P
    Or we could go back to when Arsene Wenger first arrived at Arsenal. That would make sense too.

11. MickHazel – another example of a well managed club

12. It was however very convenient to allow Rose to play as he needed game time having just come back from injury.

13. And another good example

14. Club level are having more seats installed must be to compete with Spuds stadium Strange because they can’t sell all the ones they’ve got now

15. It is funny how bias pervades everything,

    Is anybody aware that Spurs have the worst record of top 6 clubs against top 6 clubs ?
    The funny thing is that AW gets slaughtered as the one coach who cannot beat top 6 teams, yet stats prove it is Pochettino. in 16 away games agains top PL teams, he has won ONCE.

    Because the Spurs finished above us can be seen as the beginning of the end….yet on calud as well pretend it is an outlier, a blip on a radar, an exception.

    As Tony has quoted a few times : ” The sun goes around the earth, because this is what I see so it is true. ”

    Yep, exactly and Spurs have the damn best team in North London what with winning no trophy since their coach took his job and AW winning 3 FA cups in the same timespan.

    So I do not get it when people talk about perspective and concentrate a a few sets of games. Perspective is 20 years of consecutive CL qualificiation. Perspective is 49 unbeaten games. Perspective is 7 FA Cups in 10 years. Perspective is a financially well managed club.

    Perspective is considering how lenient the refs are against Tottenham : they must hold the record of the least yellow cards, red cards and penalties against them. Does it make sense ?

16. Don’t forget your wage bill is double that of Spurs, for a bit of perspective.

17. @ Chris

    Well said that man!

18. Chris you encapsulate perfectly everything that is wrong with Arsenal and their fans. Desperately trying to cling to the belief that they are better than Tottenham by trotting out some stats over the past seasons and then deciding on a period of time that should measure success. Football is, and always will be, the here and now. The here and now shows that currently Tottenham are a little better. Your final paragraph is obviously the ramblings of a person who has completely lost the plot but thanks for pointing out how disciplined Tottenham are. (Did you know that one team must hold those records? Presumably in your completely unbiased eyes it simply can’t be Tottenham). Get help

19. S-P,

    You will find that a veneer of objectivity masking the most extreme bias is, in fact, this site’s stock in trade. There’s nothing wrong with extreme bias, of course. This is an Arsenal website so it’s perfectly natural that all issues are seen through red and white tinted specs. It’s the protestations of objectivity that I find amusing.

20. When you’ve actually lived in an area of North London that’s pretty much equally divided between the two teams (supporter wise) and some of your best mates are Spurs fans and you grow up going to matches together (before the detested membership schemes) then talk about perspective.
    Spurs are on a roll, and nothing said here will alter that, but they’re not unbeatable and I’ll enjoy as much as I can of the game which unfortunately I won’t be able to watch this year as I’ll be travelling to watch AFC Wimbledon ( v Bristol Rovers) with other supporting friends.
    UTA

21. Mark,

    you’re wrong. Basically I do not care. I want to see good football games. And Arsenal has given me that year after year. However I get really upset when I see refs making bad decisions. Be it with Arsenal or any game I watch, like for example the non existant penalty given to Switzerland the other day.

    So who the hell are you to decide that something is wrong with me ? I have my opinions and try to base them on emotions AND facts. And some facts just don’t add up. So when I read them, I mention what I feel is not adding up. If that is being wrong, then ok, I’m guilty as charged.

    The fact that Spurs are no, i quote you ‘a little better’ has no incidence as to who I support. And considering that for 20 years AFC were more than a little better, I’m happy with that.

22. Chris your comment:

    ‘Perspective is considering how lenient the refs are against Tottenham : they must hold the record of the least yellow cards, red cards and penalties against them. Does it make sense?’

    Examples please of the occasions a red, yellow or penalty should have been awarded. Some examples of other clubs being treated unfairly would help as well. Strangely, the Switzerland penalty is not particularly relevant to your ridiculous point.

    Also, how long are you measuring your point over. All time? Premier league? Pochettino’s reign? Last season?

23. And here I thought competing in competitions is to win trophies, I guess being above Arsenal is considered a trophy and the FA Cup is not.

    No doubt this Spurs team is a very good team but until they actually won something it’s just huff and puff. It has taken them over 50 years to stumble on a decent team, after all those trial and errors it finally paid off, well done, now go win a trophy.

    I am told that Arsenal is in ‘decline’, are in ‘chaos’, and have ‘no ambition’ but somehow they end up with a few trophies, how did that happen?

24. Polo

    I am told that Arsenal is in ‘decline’, are in ‘chaos’, and have ‘no ambition’ but somehow they end up with a few trophies, how did that happen?

    Are Arsenal in decline? I am told this continually by my Arsenal mates who are apoplectic with rage. Is this not the case then? I’m confused – should I tell my mates that there’s nothing to worry about?

25. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/04/20/what-are-the-worst-refereeing-decisions-of-the-season-and-have-t/

26. @ Mark, tell your mates to lighten up and be optimistic.

27. Polo

    I am enjoying their rage. They tell me they have little to be optimistic about; that the owner has no ambition; the manager is a dinosaur; his staff are yes men; the top players are running down their contracts before going on free transfers; the football is not particularly entertaining anymore; the atmosphere is toxic; the recruitment is awful. But, I’ll take your advice and tell them to lighten up.

28. @mark, I think in your haste to pick a fight u don’t seem to understand that we agree( if indeed I understand you). But let me clarify, this site was all spurs-bashing up till the last week of the transfer window, claiming the stadium commitment meant spurs were going to be too poor to spend on players. However spurs not only ended up spending, but spending more than arsenal. So that’s kudos to spurs from me. And please do get your facts right, spurs spent more than they received in the last transfer window

29. Amos. Pick a fight? I’m asking you want your point is. This article is pretty much correct. Tottenham did not spend more than they received – facts are a bit sketchy on transfer fees, but you should check yours

30. Mark,

    the relevant thing about th Switzerland penalty is that I do not enjoy when a game is influenced by the refs.
    You are a visitor here who comes regularly and you may have seen the ref review of 160 games.
    If watching it does not make you wonder, then I am at a loss.
    If you have not watched that, well maybe now is the time.
    If you are not interested, your decision. But then you cannot really argue as you do not know what I am refering to.

    I have no problem with Arsenal losing to a better team. I have a big problem with Arsenal losing to a biased ref.

    As for the timeframe, going back 20 years which about when I started following Arsenal is fine with me. Had I been a fan 30 years before I’d be really happy of the past 20 years, as the results were much better then then 20 years before that.

31. @ Mark,

    Tell your mates:

    ‘that the owner has no ambition’. Same as Spurs, Liverpool, and most other clubs.

    ‘the manager is a dinosaur’. But this dinosaur won 3 trophies (exclude Community Shields) in the last 4 years, compare to some.

    ‘ his staff are yes men’. Watch how Pep, Klopp, Conte, or Mourinho staff being vocal against them.

    ‘the top players are running down their contracts before going on free transfers’. Arsenal is not the only club in this situation and it happens in football.

    ‘the football is not particularly entertaining anymore’. I partially agree with some games.

    ‘the atmosphere is toxic’ depends on people’s perception. There will always be moaners.

    ‘the recruitment is awful’. Depends on people’s perception, if the Club don’t spend £200 million then ‘recruitment is awful’.

    ‘But, I’ll take your advice and tell them to lighten up’. Thanks, please do and tell them to be optimistic.

32. Amusing, isn’t it? When the poor relation starts achieving after years in the wilderness and all of a sudden the ego spirals out of control. “Your glory days are over” they say, “We’re taking over”. Alrighty then.

    We’ve seen it recently with the rise of Manchester City; we saw it in the 80’s with Everton. However, the difference between those two clubs and Tottenham is they actually won major honours, whereas Spurs current claim to fame is the dizzying heights of a second place finish last season. As I’ve outlined on here before, don’t be fooled by the net spend figures – in Spurs’ case it indicates they go through players like water and don’t hold on to their best ones for very long. They are most definitely a selling/stepping-stone club, but boy do they know how to spend as well…

    Total expenditure on transfers since the Premier League began in 1992 (figures correct as of August 10th, 2017):

    1. Chelsea: £1,715,242,236.82
    2. Manchester City: £1,432,465,243.55
    3. Manchester United: £1,326,047,408.87
    4. Liverpool: £1,284,222,928.69
    5. Tottenham Hotspur: £1,067,652,307.21
    6. Arsenal: £831,083,654.32

    I’ll leave it to others to work out the pounds spent per trophy/league position comparison between the two North London clubs.

    Happy trails!

33. Flares – your figures are amazing you have even put the pence in and you go all the way back to when football started in 1992. Fascinating stuff. What point are you making by the way? Tottenham have spent a lot of money since 1992? What relevance has that got to anything. Interesting that you aren’t interested in mnet spend though. Wonder why that is?

34. Mark
    You’re quite correct.
    Flares calls it ‘total expenditure’ which should include income from transfers to balance the account.
    This is how they use stats to distort the truth and then moan about fake news.

35. Personally I couldn’t care less how much money is relatively spent as long as we continue to bring brilliant youngsters through from our academy and keep them (instead of letting them drift away).

36. I totally agree with Chris.

37. Just fascinating how when arguments fail, any twist will allow the discussion to go on, ever finding new ways to argue with bias against.

    So Arsenal have spent far less then other clubs. And as far as I know, the Emirates was paid to 50 % by Barcelona (Henry, Hleb, Song, Vermalen, Fabregas and some others),with City and MU probably paying for the rest, I believe that the net spend of Arsenal is probably very low. We are probably the only club in the PL whose stadium was paid for by competitors.

    So with a low net spend, they have won 7 FA cups, a few PLs, 49 games unbeaten streak, 20 years uninterrupted CL. And went to a CL final.

    For a team that, as the negatives say, has the worst manager, the worst owner, the worst coaching staff, the worst organisation and, this is what many people think, the WORST fans, I’d say they did pretty good, don’t you think ?

    And the net spend does not at all talk about these youngsters, most unknown that came through the academy and are worth their millions.

38. Flares,

    Thank you for those figures. Most interesting. I admire your diligence. Perhaps you could also furnish us with the total income figures (from player sales) for the respective clubs? And, for that matter, the total expenditure on wages (which is every bit as relevant to the discussion as expenditure on player purchases)?

    Clearly, Arsenal’s expenditure on the latter will have dwarfed Tottenham’s since the advent of the Premier League. As to the former, it is a sad consequence of clubs that persistently get it wrong (as Spurs routinely did between 1992 and 2005) that they have a high turnover of players in the quest to get it right. By contrast, those clubs that persistently get it right (as Arsenal routinely did between 1992 and 2005) have little need for a high turnover of players. Similarly, since Arsenal operated for so long towards the top end of their potential, improving the squad wasn’t always easy or especially necessary. By contrast, Spurs had languished in mid table (or worse) for so long that, when they finally started on an upward curve in 2005, they were so far behind the other top clubs that they had to reinvent themselves a number of times over succeeding years – i.e. the squad that took the club from lower mid table to the Europa League places was gradually replaced by a squad that could challenge for the top four; and that squad, in turn, gradually gave way to a squad that could challenge for the title.

    Of course there were a few steps backward in that time. And of course some players were sold. No one at Spurs was under any illusion as to the club’s place on the football food chain. Nevertheless, only four players have been sold that the club weren’t happy to sell – Carrick, Berbatov, Madrid and Bale – and, even then, only to two of the three or four biggest clubs in the world. I might suggest that that is a record that doesn’t compare so very unfavourably to Arsenal’s record of selling players that they did not wish to sell over a similar period. Yes, Arsenal knows its place in the football food chain too.

    As to the rest, I don’t doubt that you have come across all too many of the kind of nutters and trolls that infest twitter, talksport and the like. But I haven’t come across any proper Spurs fans who believe that Arsenal are in terminal decline or that Tottenham’s current elevated status is in any way consolidated. Most will simply say, with some justification, that they believe that Spurs do have a marginally better team right now and that, if Poch (especially) and others stay, the future looks bright for the club. That is all.

    None of which will have any bearing on Sunday’s game, though. I make Arsenal slight favourites on account of the game being at the Emirates.

39. Modric, obviously. Not Madrid. Damn predictive text!

40. –
    Dean for Tottenham?

    How is this Shambles™ still allowed to attend individual professional sporting events? He should’ve been Asbo’d a long long time ago:

    A statistical representation of a sewer.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/BassTunedToRed/status/930401576421863425

41. Jim,

    Are you suggesting Spurs get a pass for selling players to the ‘biggest clubs in the world’? That’s usually where top players go: upwards, rather than sideways or backwards. I believe Arsenal’s record of offloading their own top players to the big dogs (particularly Barca) compares favourably to Tottenham’s in this regard, yet we were perennially accused of being a selling club with no ambition. It’s a given Harry Kane will end up at United or Real Mad for some mind-bending fee and with Delle Ali poised to sign for Gestifute and Erikson firmly on the radar or Juve and Barcelona, who’s to say it won’t be more of the same going forward? Don’t tell me Spurs will be doing the happy clap about any of them going as they’re the engine room of this current team, especially Kane. Tottenham are about to go through exactly what Arsenal did with the stadium move, except that Arsenal only began the cycle of offloading top talent AFTER decamping to the Emirates (with three Premier League titles under our belt).

    As for wages, the most recent figures I could find were at the end of last season and show Arsenal spent £195m and Spurs £100m – a big jump you’d think until you consider Arsenal spent 55% of their turnover on wages and made a £3m profit, yet Spurs spent 48% of theirs and made £38m profit, over three times the profit of the previous tax year. What does this all mean? Anything you want it to, especially if your name’s Mark, Jax or Levy.
    Patently obvious though, is that finishing second in the league bumps your profits nicely, yet isn’t seemingly enough to prevent your best players gaze from lingering elsewhere (See: Suarez, Luis). If I was a Spurs fan I’d be particularly pissed at Delle Alli if he’s looking to jump ship already. Tottenham plucked him from nowhere and made him a star, he’s only been there 5 minutes and now he thinks he’s Billy Big Bollocks who deserves the same agent as Ronaldo. Tosser.

42. Flares,

    Am I suggesting that Spurs get a pass for selling players to the biggest clubs in the world? Not at all. I’m not sure why you would even ask such a bizarre non sequitur of a question! My purpose was simply to point out that Spurs have thus far only lost players that they didn’t want to lose to the biggest beasts in the football kingdom. Four players. From 2006-20017. In the same period, according to a quick search, Arsenal have lost at least 7 players that they didn’t want to lose: Cole, Hleb, Adebayor, Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy and Van Persie. Yet, with no apparent awareness of the irony, you choose to dismiss Spurs as a “selling / stepping stone” club?

    I don’t doubt that Eriksen and Alli will eventually leave for Barcelona or Real Madrid. Or maybe even PSG if the money attracts them more than the prestige. Maybe even sooner rather than later. It is the way of modern football. I’m quite convinced that neither will be sold to any English club, though. And with Daniel Levy at the helm, and given the perennial inflation madness of the transfer market, Spurs would probably be able to pay off a good half of their stadium debt with the proceeds. Not bad, considering. In addition to which, I have faith that the recruitment set up at Spurs, coupled with a productive academy and Pochettino’s renown for developing and improving players, will ensure the team’s continuity.

    As to Harry Kane, though, I believe that you’re wrong. He’s going nowhere. Not for a good while. He is a fan of the club. He loves Pochettino – a manager who has helped transform him from unremarkable beginnings into the top class player he has now become. And for the moment, at least, he believes that he can achieve his ambitions with Pochettino at Spurs and that those achievements will mean infinitely more for having been hard won rather than merely being the consequence of joining a team that is as good as guaranteed to win silverware anyway. He might leave eventually but it won’t be for a few years at least.

    The point I was making about wages was in response to your little dig about the “pounds spent per trophy / league position”. Any such calculation is meaningless unless wage costs are included. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Arsenal’s accumulated wage costs since the advent of the Premier League are at least £500m more than Spurs’. Of course, that’s not to say that the revised figure wouldn’t still show Arsenal hugely ahead. But, alas for Spurs fans, that is the consequence of years of mismanagement under Scholar and Sugar and subsequently facing a long and difficult road back to some sort of parity with the top clubs.

43. We gunners have got it all wrong. Spurs play at Wembley – every home game! They are at the top of English football because they have Wembley as their home ground.

    The fact that Arsenal have only got to Wembley 9 times in 4 years shows us up (even though we won all those games).

    So there we have it Spurs are the greatest London club (because their Cock is not shitting on them in Wembley) & Pochettino’s mother is a ……… nice lady.