\n
Spurs 0-1 Arsenal\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nIn line with tradition, before all north London derbies I am filled with a sense of dread. The things that have been evident for so long leave my mind and I assume the footballing equivalent of the prone position. I just can\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n
Turns out I should trust what my eyes, and the league table, have been telling me for several years. For as well as knowing how to win with beauty, we are also experts at digging in and winning pretty much any other way.<\/p>\n
For the record I don\u2019t think we won ugly, I just liked the headline. But I do think that, shorn of two of the players who make Arsenal tick in the middle of the pitch, we just dug in and won a different way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the abiding mysteries of the post-Vieira Wenger years was how we eschewed height and strength and leaned in on technical ability. We went from a big team to quite a small team, and it worked a lot of the time, but when the chips were down we also struggled to impose ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now look at us though. At 5\u2019 10\u201d Jurrien Timber was our smallest defender yesterday, but what he lacks vertically (he is hardly small anyway) he makes up for with the horizontal skills of strength, determination, positioning and canniness. Look, I know that line doesn\u2019t work very well. But I\u2019ll leave it in anyway.<\/p>\n
We have the best defensive unit in the Premier League, and yes, I do say this with my red and white varifocals on. I wouldn\u2019t want anyone other than Saliba and Gabriel marshalling my defence. I wouldn\u2019t want anyone other than White causing psychological merry hell and \u2013 sorry Zinny, Riccardo and Tomi \u2013 but Timber is going to take some shifting at left back.<\/p>\n
I also wouldn\u2019t want anyone else when it comes to seizing opportunities at the other end. Nicolas Jover\u2019s set piece army won it for us again. We keep doing it. And yesterday\u2019s opponents keep falling for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shout out to Trossard and Havertz for working their socks off and helping out Jorginho and Partey, and while the final decision didn\u2019t quite work for Martinelli (as it hasn\u2019t for a while) you cannot fault his lung power.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the thing I love about this team. We will lose a few times this season, of course we will, and things will go against us \u2013 they already have. But we really hate losing, and I\u2019m prepared to wager that there won\u2019t be many \u2013 perhaps any \u2013 games this season where we will look at them at the end and wish they hadn\u2019t left something on the pitch, or squeezed every last ounce of willpower out of themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Desire and togetherness is a magic gravy. I love it.<\/p>\n
Related<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spurs 0-1 Arsenal\u00a0 In line with tradition, before all north London derbies I am filled with a sense of dread. The things that have been evident for so long leave my mind and I assume the footballing equivalent of the prone position. I just can\u2019t help it. Turns out I should trust what my eyes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117129,117130,117131,117132,117128,117133,117134],"tags":[1622,5971,511,19837],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-286634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gabriel","category-jorginho","category-jover","category-martinelli","category-match-review","category-set-piece-magic-gravy","category-timber","tag-beautiful","tag-east","tag-ugly","tag-winning"],"yoast_head":"\n
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