One of the best parts of Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Tottenham on Saturday has been laughing at the journos, former players and pundits who predicted that the Gunners would be completely humiliated.
Starting with the combined North London XI pieces, Alexis Sanchez and Hector Bellerin were the only Arsenal players to consistently make it into various outlets’ favoured teams.
The Mirror included Aaron Ramsey and the Daily Star also snuck in Laurent Koscielny but, for the most part, every outlet picked a Spurs-dominated combined XI.
Christian Eriksen was consistently included over Mesut Ozil (“Mesut Özil drifts out of games too often,” says the Guardian) and, according to ESPN, it would only take a “disciplined and tactically astute” side to deal with the Tottenham ace.
It’s a pity that Erikson and his teammates went missing on Saturday then.
We also had some rather interesting headlines, slating not only Arsenal’s form but the club in general. Not that journos like to put all their eggs in one basket or anything…
On top of this, we had former players making outlandish claims, such as Paul Merson suggesting that Wenger RESIGN if he loses the game, Robbie Savage insisting that north London is already Lilywhite, and former Spurs chairman Sir Alan Sugar claiming that the Gunners are ‘resigned to being useless’. Honestly…
“It’s Spurs who are challenging for the title every year,” wrote Savage. “It’s Spurs who are beginning to make headway in the Champions League instead of chasing former glory on Thursday nights. It’s Spurs who have the best players and the best manager.”
If you say so, Rob.
A piece from the Mirror explained how Arsenal are the new Spurs because we fail to turn up for big games.
“Roy Keane’s infamous quote about Spurs was all about them failing to turn up in the big games, and the same thing can now be said about the Gunners,” wrote Mark Jones.
“They’ve lost at Liverpool and Manchester City already this season, and despite a draw at Chelsea there seems to be a worrying trend in which they demonstrate the same character flaws in these games over and over again.”
Oops. Somewhat ironic.
There’s something deeply satisfying about proving all the ‘experts’ wrong, isn’t there?