Tottenham 2 Arsenal 1:It was a breathless encounter, played at relentless pace, and when it was all done Tottenham had a seven-point advantage over their great rivals and the encouragement to believe they can finish above them for the first time in the Arsene Wenger era.
They will know from bitter experience how quickly it can change but there are good reasons why Arsenal are involved in a game of catch-up and this defeat, once again, provided the hard evidence.
For long spells Arsenal had the edge, playing with the greater sense of order in a frenetic match. They subjected Spurs to some prolonged pressure after Per Mertesacker’s header six minutes into the second half and gave everything in search of an equaliser.
Yet they lost because of a startling two-minute spell when they went to pieces in defence and an old deficiency was exposed that can make it feel like a trick of the mind that the team began this season with three clean sheets.
What a deception it has turned out to be. Arsenal’s defending has undermined them in big matches all season, just as it has ever since we started talking about them winning trophies in the past tense. It is a problem that has been neglected for far too long and in those moments, when Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon scored in quick succession, so much was revealed about the vulnerability of this team.
At the final whistle there were jubilant scenes. Spurs, once again, feels like a happy place and, though Andre Villas-Boas was correct to preach caution, it felt like a pivotal moment in the modern-day rivalry of these two clubs. The acoustics at White Hart Lane were superb and it finished with the victorious players throwing their shirts into the crowd.
Tottenham have had eight different managers since they last finished above Arsenal, under Gerry Francis in 1995, and finally they appear to have found one who can do it. They have now gone 12 matches unbeaten in the league, their best run for 28 years. Bale has 10 goals in eight games and there is a steel about Spurs that does not seem to be there with Arsenal. The home defence were pinned back in the final exchanges but refused to wilt.
Mertesacker finished the match playing as an auxiliary centre-forward, with the Arsenal goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, also suddenly appearing in the opposition penalty area, but Hugo Lloris was well protected in the main.
Mobility of stalagmites
It boils down to the fact that the home side’s centre-halves, Michael Dawson and Jan Vertonghen, were superb, whereas Mertesacker and Thomas Vermaelen made telling mistakes in those moments when Arsenal defended with all the mobility of a row of stalagmites.
For both Spurs goals it had been one pass that dissected the entire defence, first from Gylfi Sigurdsson and then Scott Parker, but it could never have happened without the worst form of ball-watching. Vermaelen and Mertesacker ushered in Bale to put the first past Szczesny with the outside of his left boot. The left-back, Nacho Monreal, started following Lennon for the second, then inexplicably gave up.
It meant they suddenly found themselves 2-0 down when, as Wenger said afterwards, they had not faced any concerted pressure and might even have led by the same margin. Unfortunately for them, Olivier Giroud is not a prolific striker and, for all the clever probing of Santi Cazorla and Jack Wilshere, there was no cutting edge.
In the aftermath of the game sources close to Stan Kroenke, the Arsenal majority shareholder, claimed that he has no intention of selling his shares in Arsenal, even in the face of a prospective £1.5bn offer for the club from a consortium in the Middle East.
Guardian Service
