The Malaysian Insider

LONDON, Nov 1 — The cockerel is silent in North London after Tottenham Hotspur, the fighting cocks, had boasted all week long that they were good and ready to overtake their neighbours Arsenal in the Premier League.

Arsenal outplayed and outclassed Spurs in every facet of the game at the Emirates Stadium yesterday. The 3-0 scoreline should have been at least twice that — and could well have been three times.

So loud was Robbie Keane’s insistence that the Spurs were now North London’s top side that Arsene Wenger was obliged to point out, before the ball rolled yesterday: “I don’t share that opinion. We have been 12 consecutive years in the Champions League — so once they have done that they can, of course, say they are similar.

“They have the potential, the supporters, they are a big club. But what comes next is consistency of achievement.”

Maybe it was the Spurs’ bragging that needled Wenger. Maybe it was the frustration of watching his gifted young side, so beautiful in movement yet so careless in conceding late goals. Or maybe Wenger, the master of attacking play, truly feels that his squad have the capacity to win big things this season.

But even after Robin van Persie had poached two goals, and Cesc Fabregas had scored a fantastic goal in between them, we saw Wenger so annoyed that Arsenal sometimes performed without due care to defence that he threw off his jacket and tossed it angrily behind him.

Why? Why when his team were in movement and control, in composure and concentration so thoroughly exposed the Spurs, should he display such pique?

Because Monsieur Wenger wanted a clean sheet. He has the leading scorers in the Premier League, who for the sixth consecutive home match scored three or more goals.

But he knows that there is a defensive vulnerability, stemming from whichever goalkeeper he fields, that invites teams Arsenal should beat out of sight to score against them.

Yesterday it did not look remotely the case. This was the 162nd derby in North London, and it is now more than a decade since Spurs have won any of them.

This, from the moment that van Persie sneaked in behind Ledley King to volley home Bacary Sagna’s low cross after 42 minutes, was a no-contest.

Straight from the kick-off, Wilson Palacios gave the ball away. Fabregas stole it in the centre circle and, with pace and perfect balance, he ran with it right through the despairing tackles of Palacios and King. And, just 11 seconds from that restart, he finished off goal No 2 with nonchalant aplomb.

Game over. Spurs were shot through, the cockerel’s bragging strangled at birth.

It was 3-0 on the hour when Alex Song was fouled but the referee rightly waved advantage Arsenal. For a moment, Sagna hesitated, and so did the Tottenham defence because the linesman’s flag was raised.

Every schoolboy is told play to the whistle, and when Sagna remembered that, he again crossed the ball low, van Persie again beating King and goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes. Three nil, and now really game over.

A few, forever Tottenham fans shouted the odds and recalled Spurs’ amazing comeback to tie the game 4-4 in injury time last year. Maybe that, too, was what wound up Wenger.

But the more Arsenal kept the ball, the more their passing and mobility made Tottenham chase, the wider the gulf looked. Van Persie definitely should have been the first man to score a North London derby hat-trick since Arsenal’s Alan Sunderland in 1978.

But the Dutchman was wasteful. So, on at least two clear-cut occasions, was Eduardo Da Silva, who scored none of the chances he had one against one on Gomes.

Spurs by contrast took an eternity — 58 minutes — even to make it worthwhile for Manuel Almunia even to put on his ‘keeper’s jersey. And that was a free kick from David Bentley, who should not have been on the pitch. Twice in the opening six minutes, he committed mandatory yellow-card offences — a deliberate handball and a dreadful foul from behind on Thomas Vermaelen.

Referee Mark Clattenburg seemed to be making his own rules. He whistled both offences, he lectured Bentley loud and long, but he kept his cards hidden.

No wonder that Michel D’Hooghe, the chief medical adviser to Fifa, is demanding that referees read the rule book and protect players from career-threatening fouls.

If the arbiter would not do his duty, then at least justice was served by the goals yesterday.

Spurs, undoubtedly, missed three very important players. The playmaker Luca Modric has a broken leg, the winger Aaron Lennon a damaged ankle, and the striker Jermain Defoe was serving suspension for his own mindless stamp on a former colleague at Portsmouth.

Arsenal also have wounded players. But, as this match and last Wednesday’s wonderful showing by a second string of youthful Gunners who beat Liverpool in the League Cup showed, Arsenal have a whole school of players who can pass and move a class above most of the EPL.

“I think we played with the right attitude today, and a good spirit,”  said van Persie after the Spurs beating. “It was tight for 40 minutes, but from the moment we scored, they died.

“Then the Cesc goal that was world class, because if you go through three players that quick, you need a lot of pace and a lot of skill.”

Arsenal have those in abundance. If only they can defend, their manager might relax and keep his jacket on. — Straits Times