The Twenty Tens – A sea change of a sort
Arsenal found themselves under pressure as the new decade opened. It had always seemed a matter of time before Cesc Fabregas returned to his boyhood club in Barcelona, and eventually he did make that move; only his loyalty to Wenger delayed it for a season or two. Barcelona managed by Guardiola and featuring several World Cup winners just had too big a pull for Cesc, who had signed a remarkable seven-year contract with Arsenal. Samir Nasri moved to the Etihad badmouthing Arsenal in the process. Good player but the prevailing feeling was good riddance. Wenger made some equivocal statements about big clubs not selling their best players but at the same time he seemed to accept the financial rationale for the major sales Arsenal were forced to make. City had already raided Arsenal for Clichy, Toure, and Adebayor.
The season after, to the disgust of many Gooners Robin van Persie, possibly the hottest striker in Europe, revealed a hitherto hidden affection for Manchester United. Viewed objectively it was a ruthless decision, just as was Sol Campbell’s a decade earlier, and it paid off as he immediately led United to the title. But it also underlined that Arsenal could no longer realise the ambitions of their best players and van Persie’s mind might have been made up by a catastrophic 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford the season before where a side quite unworthy of the traditions of Arsenal took the field against United. It was humiliating in the extreme and many thought it unnecessary that Arsenal should go into a season with such a threadbare squad. Though Wenger righted the ship as he so often did, bringing in Per Mertesacker and a Spanish lad called Arteta who were to play a huge part in the development of Arsenal (and still are), the feeling persisted that Arsenal were not serious title contenders anymore. It felt much worse to be patronised by Ferguson than it did to be hated by him! Arsenal embarked on a trolley-dash after the United humiliation (with very mixed results) but only after knowing that qualification for the Group stage of the Champions League was assured. That illustrated the financial pressure the club was under. It is probably fair to say that despite the massive debt that Spurs have incurred with their new stadium they appear to be under less financial pressure despite a significantly bigger debt burden than Arsenal were six years after moving into the Emirates. Is this a tribute to the better financial planning of Daniel Levy, a sign of the changing financial dynamics in high-level sport or might it be a condemnation of poor commercial management by Ivan Gazidis as Arsenal failed to generate anything like the funds Spurs have in terms of commercial revenue after moving, a move which was ostensibly to improve Arsenal’s financial situation?
On the football front , one of the most emotional returns we have seen at the club occurred in 2012 in the third round of the FA Cup. Thierry Henry had returned on loan from New York Red Bulls before the US season began and was on the bench for a third round tie with Leeds. The game was locked at 0-0 when the great man returned to a huge ovation. Superstars write their own scripts and to no one’s surprise a few minutes after he arrived, Thierry took a Song pass and slipped a trademark finish into the right hand corner for the only goal of the game. The ground erupted. Thierry hadn’t scored his last goal for the club as we feared four years before and even the Leeds fans seemed caught up in the drama of his return.
Tottenham achieved Champions league qualification again two years after their first spell in the competition but were generally eased out by Arsenal in this respect over the next few years, often on the last day of the season! Redknapp had made them competitive and had overseen their first victory at Arsenal for years when they recovered from a 2-0 deficit to triumph 3-2. But ‘Arry was jettisoned in favour of Andre Villas Boas, who remains a divisive figure both at Tottenham and at the Bus Stop to this day. Bale was sold to Real Madrid, a sale as inevitable as Fabregas’s sale to Barca, just as Arsenal brought in Madrid’s Mesut Özil, a record purchase to be followed by the addition of Alexis Sanchez the season after. Tottenham were accused of wasting the bounty produced by Bale’s transfer fee and there was a feeling that he would be impossible to replace. But Tottenham were still improving steadily. St. Totteringham’s Day arrived with increasing drama and uncertainty but Wenger’s Arsenal achieved a flurry of success winning the FA Cup against Hull in 2014 and Villa in 2015. In retrospect if Wenger had exited then his reputation would have been even higher among the fans. But then again he had built one of the best sides in the league — why leave at that moment?
The following year Spurs, having brought in Mauricio Pochettino, put in their best challenge for the title in most peoples’ living memory. It was the season when Leicester proved triumphant and Arsenal frustratingly dropped out of contention although they beat Leicester twice. Tottenham eventually handed the title to Leicester after a frenetic draw at the Bus Stop where they had led 2-0. Harry Kane was now the idol at White Hart Lane and was a formidable striker who liked to score against Arsenal despite a series of pictures suggesting that as a boy his first love was the Gunners! Arsenal had rejected him at eight years of age for being too tubby!
What gave the season an ironic twist was that having failed to match Leicester, Tottenham‘s form completely collapsed and they subsided to a 5-1 defeat at Newcastle on the last day of the season as Arsenal slipped by them into second and invited in St. Totteringham again. But Pocchetino was at last proving the leader that Tottenham had craved for years. Players like Kane, Dembele, Dele Alli, Eriksen, and Lloris gave them a quality squad, and Pochettino managed to remove the curse of St. Totteringham in 2017 as Tottenham finished second, albeit seven points behind champions Chelsea, their highest finish for almost sixty years. Arsenal failed to reach the Champions League for the first time in nineteen years but still won the FA Cup 2-1 at Wembley against Chelsea. Wenger used this as a springboard to negotiate a new contract with Stan Kroenke the day after the final. That was, in retrospect, a mistake for both parties. In 2019 Tottenham were the kings of North London and to everyone’s surprise, not least their own, came back from a 3-0 deficit against Ajax to reach the Champions League final in Madrid against Liverpool. This was the biggest moment in the club’s history and for a few weeks leading up to the final Arsenal fans were fearing that Spurs surely couldn’t land the Champions League, could they? They had a slightly fortuitous run to the final, looking likely to be eliminated at the group stage before Barcelona played a weakened side in their last game and being the beneficiary of some eccentric VAR decisions at the Etihad. Their win in Amsterdam was the stuff of pure legend as Lucas Moura notched an epic second half hat-trick.
When the final arrived Spurs were hugely unlucky to concede one of the softest penalties ever given in a major match in the first few minutes, Salah scoring, but in truth they gave a supine performance with Kane clearly not fit and lost 2-0. The Collins dictionary actually describes a condition called ‘Spursiness’ – to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory or to fall short with the prize in sight. Spurs showed their Spursy side in their last two League Cup finals and could have put up a much braver show in Madrid. But they seemed to lack intestinal fortitude under pressure.
Nevertheless, reaching the Champions League final underlined their progress in a major way. Plans advanced for a super stadium to be built on the existing site in Tottenham High Road, one of the least accessible places on earth. While the stadium was being built Spurs played at Wembley Stadium, a place that they had not visited very regularly before! To be fair Tottenham had overtaken Arsenal in terms of team quality even if Arsenal had retained the knack of winning trophies.
Arsenal’s failure to make the Champions League in 2017, was a huge blow to the club in both financial and status terms. There was a well of toxicity at the Emirates which made home games quite unpleasant experiences on occasions. It became a club divided. Marches in protest began as banners claiming ‘In Wenger we rust‘ were unfurled and were a very sad way for the Wenger era to unwind.
Arsene Wenger eventually left Arsenal in 2018 and was given the gold Premier League trophy in commemoration of his service to the club. It was so sad that his later years saw rancour and division. By the time of his departure most fans, certainly those who were regular attenders felt his time was up, indeed it was generally felt that it had been for some time, but there was an enormous well of affection and respect for a man who gave his life to the club and achieved so much. He was a visionary, a control freak, a man of huge integrity, and he gave Arsenal fans memories they will never forget. But he stayed too long.
His replacement , Unai Emery began well and almost achieved Champions League qualification in his first season; he led Arsenal to the Europa League final in Baku where the team gave an anaemic performance in a 4-1 thrashing by Chelsea. In his second season things deteriorated quickly with a very divided dressing room and some of the most highly-paid players at odds with the club. His eventual replacement, just in time for the new decade, was Mikel Arteta, the former captain of the club who had coached at Manchester City under Pep Guardiola after retiring from playing. His close friend Mauricio Pochettino looked set to lead Spurs up that final step but within a year football was hit with a crisis it could never have envisaged and had to adapt to a very different world.
2020 vision- what is the trajectory of the clubs?
There may be readers of this analysis who were hitherto largely unfamiliar with the respective histories of the clubs. Trying to look objectively at Tottenham’s story it would seem that for years they had sought a leader who could bring the combination of stability and quality that Wenger had brought to Arsenal. In May 2019 Tottenham had contested the Champions League Final in Madrid. It was the high water mark for the club as it would be for almost any club and their manager Mauricio Pochettino had achieved it whilst recapturing the style of football that Spurs’ fans had claimed was the club’s birthright. But in November 2019 Daniel Levy decided to remove Poch, as a slow start saw some Spurs fans suggest he had ‘taken the club as far as he could’. How often that label has been pinned to managers who have radically overachieved at a club. They have usually gained access to new, unprecedented horizons by very good coaching. They replaced him with the controversial Jose Mourinho, that most abrasive and unpleasant of characters. If Arsenal fans had been polled to suggest the most divisive new coach for Tottenham, and one likely to create a stress fracture in the club, it would almost certainly have been Mourinho who they would have nominated.
Levy had overseen the move to Tottenham’s new stadium, the new White Hart Lane. It was completed some time behind schedule but it brought excitement to a club that were desperate for some sort of positive differentiation from their North London rivals. It had a number of state-of-the-art design features which enabled it to be used for NFL fixtures, Rugby league finals, boxing, and pop concerts. It was a very clear way of generating significantly increased revenue. In the dozen years since the Emirates opened, stadium features and technology had advanced a great deal. You could even now fill your beer glass upside down! It made the new stadium a goldmine. But a number of Tottenham fans were asking what was the point of generating this increased revenue whilst the side continued to underperform on the field.
ENIC Group is owned by the family trust of Joe Lewis. ENIC’s Bahamas-registered subsidiary, ENIC International Limited, currently holds 86.58% of the total issued share capital of Tottenham Hotspur. Daniel Levy and his family own 29.88% of the share capital of ENIC International Limited, while a discretionary trust of Lewis’s family owns 70.12%. Levy has become a very rich man during the almost quarter century that he has been in charge at Tottenham. A lot of simple Spurs folk claim with a mixture of pride and anguish that Daniel Levy ‘is a very good businessman‘ and ‘a great negotiator‘. But what he manifestly isn’t is a Chairman with a stellar record of onfield achievement. When he became chairman Tottenham had won eight FA Cups to Arsenal’s seven. Since he has been chairman Arsenal have won the trophy another seven times. Spurs have never reached the FA Cup Final during his tenure. One trophy in twenty three years (and that the least significant of the domestic triple ) is not a cause for celebration and makes it very hard for Spurs to claim that on playing record they are a really big club. They have a wonderful stadium and a tradition of fine football played by great players but they are not consistently in the mix for the big prizes.
Mourinho did get Tottenham to a League Cup Final in 2021 but was fired before the final where Ryan Mason took charge; Mason was then replaced by Nuno Espírito Santo, and then quickly afterwards by Antonio Conte. In a period of five years they have had (not including temporary sticking plasters ), five big name managers — as many as Arsenal have had in thirty-eight years. Hire and fire worked effectively for Chelsea in the Abramovich era but it was coupled with astute purchases in the transfer market. The sense is that Tottenham lack an effective touch in the market, and they are a harder sell to world-class players who like to fill their own trophy cabinets rather than just see the shareholders making themselves richer.
Arsenal had made Unai Emery their new manager, the successor to Wenger. Emery has an impressive record in Europe but seemed to become less and less effective in his second season and Arsenal replaced him with Mikel Arteta. KSE, Arsenal’s shareholders, were not warmly regarded by most Arsenal fans. Stan Kroenke was known as ‘Silent Stan’ because he was not a frequent or effusive communicator and his early strategy seemed to be to pile in behind Arsene Wenger who had turned Arsenal into a cash cow.
The choice of Arteta, who was seriously considered when Emery was appointed, was brave. It was his first managerial job and a few months into the job he was the first major soccer casualty of the Covid virus. He made a steady start with a woefully unbalanced squad and then had to face the extraordinary challenge of empty stadia and all that Covid brought. He halted a potential slide towards relegation and switching to three at the back took Arsenal to Wembley in the FA Cup where they first beat Manchester City in the semi final 2-0, and then overcame Chelsea 2-1. All four of the goals were scored by Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, who was subsequently given a huge contract which gave him in excess of £300k a week. It proved in hindsight to be a poor decision although Auba helped Arsenal to a Community Shield a few weeks later; but Arsenal’s form fell away thereafter. At the end of the season Arsenal finished 8th, out of Europe altogether, and Spurs qualified for the Conference League in 7th. Bale returned on loan to clinch the poison chalice of Europa Conference League football.
Towards the end of the 2020/ 21 season 12 European football clubs collectively issued a letter of intent to form a new European so-called ‘Super League’, of which they would be the founder members. Spurs and Arsenal both signed up to a project that unravelled almost as quickly as it appeared. Both North London clubs distanced themselves from the project fairly quickly and in apologetic terms which seemed to presage a different approach to the fans at both clubs. One could be forgiven for thinking that Arsenal in particular had felt a penny drop about what English football fans expected of their club owners. The ESL project is certainly not dead, but is currently quiescent and it will be interesting to see what might happen if Manchester City are heavily sanctioned by the Premier League if found guilty of the charges lined up against them. The ESL debacle threatened to undermine the relationship between owners and fans but it seems that it may, inadvertently, have improved owner understandIng of what constitutes a football club, especially a Premier League club situated in North London.
Antonio Conte was a successful winning manager who had just helped Inter Milan to the Italian title but he was not reticent about making public pronouncements about the support he expected from his board. Arsenal‘s board was effectively irrelevant in the decision-making process after KSE became the only shareholder in the club, and changes were made with Raul Sanllehi following Ivan Gazidis and Sven Mislintat out of the club. Tim Lewis was playing a much bigger role in the governance of the club, and Josh Kroenke was appearing to be an emotionally very intelligent and supportive confidante of Arteta, who needed one as Arsenal began the 21/22 season disastrously. Arsenal lost the first three games, the last a humiliation at the Etihad. Josh kept the faith, refusing to panic, and he was proved right. Arsenal almost made it back into the Champions League at the end of that season. In mid-season Arteta insisted the club get rid of Aubameyang and the owners backed him. What made it very painful was that Tottenham overtook Arsenal to claim the 4th place and Champions League football, winning a crunch match at the Lane 3-0. In that match Tottenham looked a much more mature match-winning machine than Arsenal, who fielded players like Cedric and Rob Holding (who was sent off early on). But overall Arsenal had shown progress and it continued the next season as Arsenal raced into a huge lead in the League, in a season interrupted by a winter World Cup. City eventually overtook Arsenal but the Gunners were in a clear second place and did the double over Tottenham who finished out of the European places after they disposed of Conte. There was again a feeling that Arsenal had stability and vision and Tottenham were back to square one looking for a Messiah to lead them out of the football wilderness.
They chose as their Messiah Ange Postecoglou, the Celtic manager and a straight-speaking Aussie. A lover of the high press but someone whose inability to make eye contact was reminiscent of a previous Spurs manager, Gerry Francis.
Arsenal built ambitiously on their fine season in 22/23 with the huge purchases of Declan Rice and Kai Havertz. Postecoglou bought well too, obtaining the rapid Dutch defender Micky Van de Ven, and Vicario an upgrade on Lloris in goal. But the loss of their record goalscorer Harry Kane to Bayern Munich was a grievous pre-season blow. Arsenal carried their challenge to City right through to the end of the season but City put together win after win until with two games to go they travelled to the Lane where they had an atrocious league record. The preamble to that game encapsulated all of the toxicity we have noted accumulating over the years between the clubs. Surveys in the media and articles in the press suggested Spurs’ supporters would prefer relegation to Arsenal winning the league. To his credit Postecoglou rubbished this attitude but one sensed he was shocked by the way this obsession with Arsenal defined Tottenham in their fans’ eyes. Spurs played well on the night but Son clean through with an easy chance near the end saw Ortega make a fine save, and Arsenal’s chance of the title was gone as City triumphed 2-0.
I had many bitter discussions with Spurs fans around this time. The gist of their argument was that Arsenal are deeply arrogant and they could not take more songs about winning the title at the Lane or stealing away Tottenham’s captain on a free or seeing Arsenal emerge supreme in the Premier League. It is hard not to feel that their obsession with Arsenal limits the potential of the club. Sixty plus years without a title has taken its toll but beyond that they have only won two League Cups in thirty five years . They start next season outside an expanded Champions League when a few weeks before they looked likely to finish above Aston Villa. Can Postecoglou reverse this inferiority complex and can Arteta take Arsenal beyond City at the third attempt?
The present day – Business as usual?
This has been a much deeper dive into Arsenal/Tottenham history than I expected it to be. I wouldn’t claim for a second that it is a truly balanced view, but I have genuinely tried to discover and reveal the culture and traditions of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club as well as those of Arsenal. I haven’t touched on things like the ‘Y’ word and why Tottenham consider themselves the club who represent the Jewish community in North London, when there is evidence that Arsenal has just as many Jewish supporters. One senses Tottenham crave a unique identity even if it is not truly authentic.
The toxicity that I allude to often is a product of modern society. Local rivalries all over the country seem to be channelled into more and more aggressive, a confrontational aggression illustrating a keen lack of respect for the other club. Social media facilitates this…
I was in Norwich recently, and the rivalry with Ipswich is deep and heartfelt and very uncompromising. Southampton and Portsmouth reflect the strong city rivalries through their football teams. United and City in Manchester, and Liverpool and Everton, are very strong rivalries and reflect intense tribalism. Frankly I don’t feel that strongly about Spurs as rivals because consistently over the last fifty years Arsenal have out-performed them. I certainly wouldn’t prefer Arsenal to be relegated to Spurs winning the league. It is a ludicrous notion and maybe that is why I don’t consider it seriously. I suspect most sane Arsenal fans feel the same.
This season Arsenal are genuine contenders for the league title but much will depend on what punishment (if any) is meted out to City. Tottenham are probably not contenders for the title but they could be a top four side, although Postecoglou’s naive ideas on high lines and when and how to press may prove their undoing if they continue to be ultra-aggressive. If Tottenham don’t start well Postecoglou will come under pressure. His popularity waned a little as last season went on and Tottenham dropped several home points or made heavy weather of beating struggling teams. One day Tottenham have to find a good manager, back him and stick with him or the rinse and repeat cycle will go on. And while Spurs fans have to regard Arsenal as rivals they must not allow Arsenal to live rent-free in their heads, nor to decide whether Spurs have a good season or not by how well Arsenal have done.
It is an intense rivalry, frankly it is too intense, and last year’s City debacle underlined how obsessional and toxic things have got. But in the frenzy of competition I don’t expect that to change any time soon. The two North London giants are great clubs but given the size of their followings a peaceful co- existence is unlikely!
Arsenal have a motto ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit‘ (Victory through Harmony) which is a fair and meaningful assessment of how to succeed in football (and in life). Tottenham’s motto ‘Audere est Facere’ (To Dare is to Do) has always bemused me largely because, unless I am missing something, it is effectively meaningless. It seems to speak to a bold, gladiatorial approach to life, and Postecoglou certainly has rekindled that passion, but that isn’t really what the motto says. It is ill-defined and one would expect that if it correlated to the football approach they have, the motto might change slightly every few years and never quite epitomise what the club wants to be about.
The rivalry continues, often producing the most exciting head-to-head derbies in the league, and the passion and dread of defeat never wanes. One thing that unites almost all Spuds and Gooners is that before each Derby they dread the outcome. It is a wonderful game to win but a hideous one to lose. It is a rivalry that is white-hot and bitter.
Underneath it all I choose to remember those eminently decent Spurs fans gently bowing their heads in 2001 as a stadium wept for Rocky. Decency writ large. I hope that respect and understanding can always underpin the passion but recent events suggest it is a forlorn hope.
Enjoy the new season playing the Goonerholicsforever Prediction Contest, in aid of the Willow Foundation!
Can you harness your inner Mystic Meg and out-predict defending champion Pangloss in foreseeing the final Premier League table for the 2024-25 season?
Will you be more clairvoyant than CER and GSD were last season in predicting the FA Cup winner? Or TTG and Uply when it comes to the League Cup?
What’s your bet on the first manager to get the tin tack this season? Have you got a better inside track or insight than Dr F. Jnr?
You can only find out by entering the 2024-25 edition of the GHF Predictathon.
Again, the purpose of the contest is twofold. Firstly, it is to increase your enjoyment of the upcoming season by providing a degree of light-hearted competitive rivalry as the season progresses. Secondly, it will enable us to support the Willow Foundation with a further source of charitable funding.
Check out the “GHF Contests” tab at the top of the page for The Rules, the entry blank and information about how to enter the contest, and how the contest will be scored.
Good luck!
