Here at Cannon Towers we often talk in the ‘office’ about things we’ve noticed as we go about our daily Arsenal-focused lives.

When Anita showed us all the tweet below, it set my blood boiling.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand more than anything else, it’s unfairness, and, quite frankly, the way the press treat Arsenal compared to Tottenham is nothing short of that.

Now F365 cannot be claimed to be the voice of the entire media, but you don’t have to be one of Jose Mourinho’s Einsteins to know that there is a very clear divide in the way the two clubs are treated by large sections of the media.

For years this has been evident, especially as we went through our trophy drought, but many said that we should be flattered – that it proved the media didn’t expect as much from Tottenham as they did Arsenal.

Over the last couple of seasons, that has changed.

Tottenham, whatever the validity, are now talked about openly as title challengers after one season in which they went close and a decent start this.

They’re in the Champions League and, as such, should be treated with the same rough gloves that are reserved for the elite at the top of the pile.

Why should they get all the praise without any of the pressure?

As you can see in that tweet above, Spurs are being lauded for not spending huge sums.

‘Throwing huge sums of cash at a problem doesn’t have to be the only way to succeed’ the author tells us, quite contrary to what Arsenal and Arsenal fans were told as we worked our way through the austerity years as we built our own stadium with our own money (receiving no funding like Spurs will from Haringey Council, desperate to keep them in the area).

In total, £41m of public money has been promised to regenerate the area around Spurs’ new ground and the amount they were obliged to pay towards transport and other community improvements was reduced from £14m to just £0.5m.

As stated in the Guardian, “Also encouraging Levy to stay was that the standard London planning requirement for housing developments – to include 50% affordable housing – was waived for Spurs, after he argued that to make the new stadium financially viable, the club needs all the money it can make from selling 285 apartments on the site of the current ground at full market rate.”

Must be nice, eh?

Anyway, back to the point I was making.

It has been eight years since Tottenham won a trophy (the league cup) and 25 years since they won a trophy anyone cares about (FA Cup). They haven’t won the league in 55 years, 56 by the end of this season and they’ve qualified for the Champions League twice without ever finishing above Arsenal in the 20 years Arsene Wenger has been in charge.

Super, plucky Spurs. Too poor to pay for the requirements imposed on everyone else while ‘winning’ without breaking the bank.

Well, no. They aren’t even winning.

In the eight years since they last won a trophy they’ve spent £461m on players compared to Arsenal’s £339m. In that same period we have heard nothing but plaudits for Tottenham while Arsenal are slated constantly for not doing better. Not spending more.

Things are a little different when you look at the net spend, with Tottenham’s over the last eight years coming in at just over £14m and Arsenal’s £190m, but Arsenal have eight years of Champions League football and two FA Cups for that amount in that time.

Tottenham, do not.

It was around the five-year mark of Arsenal’s trophy drought, post-stadium move, that it became a legal requirement in all reports about the club to mention it. We are still waiting for it to become a regular feature when talking about Spurs.

Or a feature at all.

After I did a report on Arsenal closing the gap on Spurs this weekend, because Spurs had won all three points earlier in the day and Arsenal, by winning, closed the gap they had extended with that win, I received an email from a Spurs fan about the headline.

“Lee”, it said, “Arsenal’s 3 points don’t close any gap as Spurs got 3 points too! In fact, they’ve increased their gap by 1 goal of a difference. Be careful if you are getting a train, tube or bus to work tomorrow. The gap’s wider than you think.”

The gap, as it currently stands, is 13 league titles v two. 12 FA Cups v eight. One year without an important trophy v 25. 12 years without a league title v 55. A gazillion straight years in the Champions League v two appearances in their history.

Their fans, and the media, would do well to remember that.

They won’t, however.

They’re too busy trying to forget just how long it’s been since Spurs won anything that mattered, they don’t have room for anything else.

After 20 years of this, you’d really think they’d learn.