THIS is the best opportunity Arsenal are ever going to have to win the title.
That’s what makes this North London derby against Tottenham so important — for both sides.
There’s no doubt Arsenal are in a very, very strong position this year. They have got a great squad and are genuine, red-hot favourites to win it.
I know they’re without Gabriel, who’s been such a big player for them at both ends of the pitch.
This time last year, you’d have been worried for them without him.
But not now, when they have the likes of Piero Hincapie, Cristhian Mosquera or even Ben White to come in alongside William Saliba. That’s the strength of their squad.
Last year, if key players were out you’d think ‘well that’s it’.
But then this year they’ve lost players and had enough cover to plug the holes.
The squad is so powerful and they’re the team to beat for sure.
You don’t have to be a genius to work that one out. And if they blew it this year, you would wonder, wouldn’t you, if they’d lose belief?
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And it’s obvious that Arsenal are favourites for this game, too.
I didn’t realise until the other day that I’m the only Spurs manager to win there in the Premier League over 30 years.
That seems incredible and I remember it well. We were two-down and got back into it in the second half before Younes Kaboul scored the winner.
But there were a few games like that.
In my first week at Tottenham we went to the Emirates and were 4-2 down with two minutes to go but got a 4-4 draw and then another season we were two up early on and were smashed 5-2.
Tottenham’s home form has been the problem this season.
Thomas Frank has had to be without James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski all campaign, two players that can make a difference, can play a pass.
So that creative spark that they bring to the team is missing. They can’t win at home but they’ve picked up some good results away, when they can play on the counter a bit more.
But Thomas has to make sure his players understand what this game means to the fans.
It’s not like back in the day when players were from the area and knew what it was all about because they’d grown up as a fan. Now there’s only a handful of English players on both sides, let alone Londoners.
You probably have to relate it to games where maybe they’ve come from, say it’s like Boca Juniors versus River Plate or Real Madrid against Atletico.
As the manager I would spell it out. Tell them: ‘Listen, this is our big game of the year, this is the one the crowd want to win more than anything, this is our cup final today’.
You want them to know it’s everything to the fans, so that we have to turn in a performance.
It’s ‘We can’t let them down, their pride is at stake. They’ll go to work on Monday with bragging rights if we win’ and try to spell out the importance of the fixture.
But with Tottenham, you’ve got to be careful that you keep cool heads.
That game when we were two-up we had Emmanuel Adebayor sent off after he’d scored.
If you’re Spurs, you don’t want Cristian Romero jumping into a two-footed tackle after five minutes and getting sent off.
It’s about cool heads. He’s played enough big games to know you’ve got to be up for it but you don’t want to be over-cooking it either.
So the message can’t be ‘here we go, we’re going to steam in’.
It’s more ‘we need to compete today, it’s a massive game for us, let’s make sure we turn in a performance and get a positive result’.
But it’s equally big for both clubs. Arsenal can’t afford to slip up.
They have got a lead but they dropped a couple of points at Sunderland.
They are going great but they cannot afford to slip up. They’re at home, they’ve got to keep picking up wins, three points every time.
For Tottenham, they want to be having a top-four finish this year, so they’ve got to keep winning.
And obviously, just the game itself, it is so important to beat Arsenal.
Fed to the Wolves
ROB EDWARDS’ decision to leave Middlesbrough and take over at Wolves was a bold move — but a massive gamble.
I like what I see of Rob. He comes over as a classy, nice guy. It could be a career-changer for him, one way or the other.
If it works out and he keeps Wolves up, he becomes a hero. But if it doesn’t work out, he’s done himself no favours.
One team could pass the other team at the end of the season.
It looks likely that Wolves will go down and Boro come up.
It’s also because the man he’s left behind, Steve Gibson, is the best chairman in football.
The money he’s put into that club is incredible, the support he’s given them, he’s a local guy. He’s been amazing for Middlesbrough, really. He’s put fortunes in there.
So I hope it works out for Rob, I like what I see of him but he’s got a massive job on his hands.
At the start of the season, we all went ‘Sunderland and Burnley will go down, Leeds might stay up because of that fantastic atmosphere at Elland Road’.
But they could all stay up, especially Sunderland with the points they’ve got.
