We won the league at White Hart Lane - Preview

By Boris Mellor
November 12 2004

Last season Arsenal fans celebrated winning the league at White Hart Lane. Strangely Totteringham fans celebrated the fact they had got a point at home! What can Gooners expect this season?

Last year Arsenal were so rampant in the first half that a Spurs fan I know walked out as he feared the worst. Yet the match ended 2-2 and Spuds fans celebrated as if they had stopped us from winning the league, which they hadn't. Now they were lucky to get a draw, true Arsenal took their foot off the pedal, and Spuds stepped up a bit - but if Lehmann had kept his cool they would not have got a sniff. It is fabled that it was this event that pissed Paddy off so much that he thought of leaving.

 However none of this is the point, the point is that Totteringham played for quarter of the game and their fans celebrated - why not? Well the point is this why were they so useless for three quarters of the game?

Why have they lost 4 in a row, and two of those games were to London Clubs.  Yet Saturday they  will play as hard as possible. The reality is that for most matches and most of the time they are shortchanging their fans, then once a season, and it is once a season (as they are lousy at Highbury), they put on a big show.

Shouldn't their fans be pissed off with them? They probably are - but tomorrow is their cup final, they have little else to hope for apart from beating Arsenal. So anything less than losing will be historic for them.

Whatever happens tomorrow it will not decide the season, if the form book is anything to go by Arsenal should slaughter them. But this is a match where the form book sometimes goes out of the window. Indeed the most likely result would be a draw, but Wenger has not gone 4 games without a win in the Premiership for a very long time. He and the team will be up for it, but they will have to break down a ten man defence drilled by Jol all week for little else. So patience might be needed all round.