North London derby takes centre stage

Over the last few weeks I’ve been pick­ing out the biggest derby fix­tures from around the Pre­mier League and else­where for my soc­cerondish arti­cles.  This week­end two of London’s biggest clubs, and indeed his­tor­i­cally London’s biggest clubs before Roman Abramovic started the Chelsea rev­o­lu­tion, meet in what is always mas­sive fix­ture. Need­less to say, in foot­balling terms Spurs fans and Arse­nal fans aren’t the best of friends and local brag­ging rights are impor­tant to both.  Over the last few years (well a lot longer in all fair­ness) Arse­nal have been the stronger team by quite a way but there is a feel­ing around White Hart Lane that all that could change this sea­son.

Since the arrival of Harry Red­knapp at Spurs they’ve improved dra­mat­i­cally and look real con­tenders for Cham­pi­ons League qual­i­fi­ca­tion this sea­son.  They dis­ap­pointed last week­end with a 1–0 loss on home soil to Stoke, but in real­ity Spurs enjoyed the major­ity of the chances in that game and on any other day they would have com­fort­ably beaten the Pot­ters.  Arse­nal let a two goal lead slip against strug­glers West Ham and boss Arsene Wenger will be eager to see his side get back to win­ning ways.

In the cor­re­spond­ing fix­ture last sea­son the two north Lon­don rivals played out an enthralling 4–4 draw.  The pick of the eight goals in that fix­ture was with­out a doubt Spurs’ mid­fielder David Bentley’s smasher from range (and when I say range, he was barely in the opposition’s half!).  That goal has proved to be the high­light of Bentley’s Tot­ten­ham career so far and he has lan­guished in the shad­ows a bit since Aaron Lennon made the right-wing his own.  Bent­ley is a prod­uct of Arsenal’s youth acad­emy but left as a young­ster to join Black­burn Rovers before mak­ing a big money switch to Spurs.  Lennon has picked up an ankle injury and will play no part against the Gun­ners, with Red­knapp all but con­firm­ing Bent­ley will start on the right.

This is what the Spurs boss had to say:  “There’s no doubt Bent­ley has balls — plenty of ‘em — and his per­for­mance dur­ing our 2–0 Car­ling Cup win on Tues­day night (against Ever­ton) was worth its weight in gold.

“What Tot­ten­ham need now is more of the same from Bent­ley and I can’t think of a bet­ter place for him to do it than at one of his for­mer clubs.

“It’s not been easy for David of late. There was his well-publicised brush with the law on a motor­ing offence and, by his own admis­sion, he’s not been push­ing Aaron Lennon hard enough for the right-wing posi­tion — until Tues­day night that is.

“A lot of peo­ple also have com­pletely the wrong idea of what he is like to deal with. I can tell you he is a decent lad.

“Sure he’s a good-looking young man and has tal­ent in shed­loads but he is not the flash Her­bert some try to make him out to be.

“Not so long ago, he was being tipped as David Beckham’s suc­ces­sor on the right wing for Eng­land but now young Lennon is in pos­ses­sion of that place.

“What my team will need at the Emi­rates is Bent­ley sup­ply­ing plenty of those qual­ity crosses to put the Arse­nal defence under pressure.”

So can Bent­ley shine against his for­mer employ­ers? We’ll find out on Sat­ur­day and it will be a mas­sive test for the vis­it­ing Spurs team to take all three points at the Emi­rates.  Arsenal’s style of play is per­haps the most attrac­tive in the world, with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of Barcelona, and they have look dev­as­tat­ing at times this season.

In all hon­esty I doubt we’ll see another eight goal thriller between these two high-flying sides but I’m still expect­ing plenty of goals and a hard-fought occa­sion. Both sides have excel­lent attack­ing tal­ent within their ranks but defences hat per­haps are quite eas­ily breached on occa­sion so we should see a few goals.  On paper this is the pick of the fix­tures this week­end and it should be a game well worth tun­ing in for.

Writ­ten by Gareth Free­man, a sports writer pro­mot­ing Irish rac­ing bet­ting picks, tips and advice for Bet­fair.

North Lon­don derby takes cen­tre stage, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rat­ing

Tagged as: Arsenal, Spurs