Two goals for Harry Kane, another for Son Heung-min and, to compound Arsenal’s misery, Rob Holding sent off. Tottenham had won the derby and would go on to win their last two games of the season to take fourth place and the final Champions League qualification spot from Arsenal. It was the end of the 2021-22 campaign, and the sixth season in a row in which Tottenham had finished above Arsenal and, for the first time since the 60s, it seemed that they had a definitive superiority in north London.
Since when – although Spurs will point out they have won a trophy and Arsenal have not – the pendulum has swung decisively back the other way. Mikel Arteta has remade Arsenal, but the question is whether, after three straight second-place finishes, they can go one better and win the league for the first time since 2004, a drought that itself makes success more difficult.
The long wait intensifies desire. Even at this stage of the season, there is an acute consciousness of where the finish line is: games are not just games, they are steps towards that final goal and that, inevitably, leads to a heightened emotional state.
A draw at Sunderland is not a bad result. Nobody has beaten them at home so far this season. There is no reason for Arsenal to panic. And nobody is panicking. But there is a faint glimmer of unease before a testing week. On the one hand, that is positive: Arteta should be frustrated at his side twice conceding by being beaten to the second ball in the box and should be determined to maintain the standards that had been set previously. But on the other, it’s impossible to win the title if the base level of nervous energy is too high. And Manchester City are looming.
Erling Haaland looks unstoppable. Somehow, while Arsenal have had an excellent start to the season, setting records for consecutive clean sheets, and City began uncertainly enough to drop 11 points (only three fewer than they dropped in the whole of 2017-18), the gap from first to second at the beginning of the weekend was only four points.
Arsenal have felt City’s breath on their neck before and it has not ended well for them. Not even a third of the season has gone; they cannot let the run-in start now. It happened in 2022-23 when the winter World Cup distorted the sense of the calendar and for Arsenal, with a lead to protect, each game became impossibly freighted. The memory of that season, the yearning for another league title, the early lead, all risk something similar.
In that sense, a derby may not be the worst way to reset after the international break. It has a meaning in and of itself. The ramifications for the Premier League table, at least temporarily, retreat behind issues of parochial pride. And those are real enough, not least because the two sides, since Arsenal made the journey north from Woolwich in 1913, have had so much in common. Yet Arsenal, since the moment in 1919 when they were granted what Tottenham believe should rightfully have been their place in the First Division, have taken on the role of older cousin.
Both benefited from innovative managers in the 20s: Herbert Chapman at Arsenal and Peter McWilliam at Tottenham. Chapman won an FA Cup and two league titles before his death midway through another title-winning season. It was thanks to the foundations he laid that Arsenal won a seventh league title in 22 years in 1952-53. McWilliam’s success was delayed, but it was two of his proteges, Arthur Rowe and Bill Nicholson, who brought Spurs’ two league titles.
Both, by the end of the last century, found themselves restricted by old-fashioned stadiums that could not be expanded without complete rebuilding. But as Arsenal began the construction of the Emirates, Roman Abramovich arrived in English football and the rules of the game changed. It would be unfair to say the move to the Emirates has failed – Arsenal would be in a worse position without it – but it has not yet yielded the dividends on the pitch that many would have anticipated.
Tottenham’s move came 13 years later. Their stadium can host five times as many non-football events a year as Arsenal’s and is more profitable but whatever the merits of their homes, Spurs and Arsenal are unusual among the elite in relying more on stadium revenue than the generosity of their owners.
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Both have enjoyed recent spells under dynamic young managers who were teammates at Paris Saint-Germain under Luis Fernández. Mauricio Pochettino and Arteta successfully cleared out the old guard while imposing a modern style that has influenced others in the league. The difference is that while Pochettino’s revolution came during the stadium move which, ultimately, cost focus, investment and momentum, Arteta has benefited from taking over with the stadium mature and its income streams reliable.
Pochettino fell narrowly short of a league title twice (although Arsenal ended up pipping his side to second in 2015-16, it was Tottenham who were Leicester’s most serious challengers); Arteta’s story similarly is, so far, of near misses. The danger is that if that doesn’t change this season the perception of him, not only among the public but more damagingly his squad, will become of somebody who is somehow not a winner, despite the vast improvements he has brought to Arsenal.
Injuries have struck again, Gabriel Magalhães joining Martin Ødegaard, Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus on the sidelines with Riccardo Calafiori also a doubt for Sunday. Arsenal have probably the strongest and most coherent squad in the league, but this is its most severe test.
Yet whatever doubts there are for Arsenal, at Tottenham they are far greater, poor home form magnifying the doubts of those who wondered whether Thomas Frank could make the step up from Brentford. And they are without Dominic Solanke, James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Lucas Bergvall.
Spurs may be much better away from home this season, but Frank has won only one of nine games against Arsenal, who have won seven of their past nine Premier League games against Spurs.
Whatever pressure they may be beginning to feel, Arsenal remain the elder cousin.
