Tottenham 1-4 Arsenal – 21/09/10 – (Carling Cup) 23 September, 2010

A bit late, this match preview I know but any win over Spurs is worth talking about whether two days later, next week or a year down the line. We all love it! On Monday I was considering not watching the game at all but come the day of the game there was no stopping me, you can’t just miss a North London derby whatever the circumstances or wherever I was supposed to be instead! I was expecting us to field a typical inexperienced youth side against a near enough Tottenham first XI but both sides went for a mixture of youth and experience which seems to make more sense to me now; Spurs if you haven’t heard are in the Champions League and being sensible you can’t risk you’re first team in the Carling Cup with Europe and the Premiership to still compete in. As for us well no one likes to go out of any cup in the first round, especially not at the ground of your biggest rivals, also it seems like we will be taking the competition a little more seriously now; we haven’t won anything in a few years now and a triumph even in the Carling Cup might be enough to spur push us on to a league title. It would just be nice to see us lift any kind of silverware this season and with Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City all being knocked out last night we’re in a quite good position to do it.

Anyway to our game on Tuesday night, we were magnificent. The mixture of experience plus a few understudies worked perfectly proving that any side we put out will play the Arsenal way. Jack Wilshere was fantastic yet again and was the obvious choice for man on the match. Once again the opponents only response to the teenager’s talent was to kick him down and kick him again, but he simply got up and carried on his game running the midfield and supplying killer balls all over the place. This guy is just as exciting as Cesc Fabregas was at 18 and if Barcelona do cough up the cash next summer we might have a ready made replacement. Samir Nasri might have something to say about that as once again in the captain’s absence put in a great performance in the middle. He snatched Sky’s man of the match award for his two penalties in extra time but I think overall you have to say Jack ran the show.

We absolutely dominated the first half; Spurs could hardly get the ball. The home side gave us a couple of scares on the break but other than them it was all us. We took the lead after 15 minutes when Henri Lansbury scored his first goal of the season. It was quite a nice goal actually, Eboue spotting Gibbs free on the left and switching the play to him, Gibbs to Wilshere who had got in a dangerous crossing position and then a killer ball across the goal mouth from Jack which Lansbury made the run to tap in. We should’ve probably capitalized on our first half domination more by turning it into goals but we went in at the break just 1-0 up. It should’ve been two though, the linesman wrongly flagging Gibbs offside after rounding the ‘keeper who was put through by a perfect ball by Wilshere.

I was pissed off with the linesman at half time so you can understand why I was furious that he let Keane’s goal stand just minutes into the second half. It was marginal, but he was offside when he was put through whereas Gibbs was clearly on. Fabianski should’ve done miles better though, Keane’s shot was poor and he even got down to it but the ball still managed to find the net. I don’t want to see this clown in goal for us anymore, luckily he didn’t have much else to do but how many chances can this guy get?! Szczesny was very unhappy at not being involved and so were most of the fans I think. I hope to see him in goal in the next round of the competition, he deserves his chance now, Fabianski has blown his too many times.

So the 90 minutes were up at it was 1-1, you could say luckily as Keane hit the post late on put then you could look back at the chances we could’ve converted too. I was pretty nervous in the second half of the game and more so going into extra time, it was getting tense now and I was desperate to win. However just one minute into extra time Nasri was dragged down in the area and the ref pointed to the spot. Memories of the miss at Sunderland were still fresh in the mind but this time Nasri picked himself up and took the spot kick himself. Wenger had told him to forget about these superstitions that if you are brought down you don’t take the penalty and he finished well. A few minutes later Chamakh was brought down in the box and he got another penalty! Nasri took it again showing great composure to read the ‘keeper and slot it in the opposite corner. 3-1 Arsenal and it had come out of nowhere.

It was pretty much game over from here. The Spurs kids were cramping up all over the pitch and once again a match has been decided by our squad’s superior fitness. Gibbs was brought off in the 102nd minute with a suspected broken metatarsal which was a bit depressing – he’d had a great game and recently whenever he’s been given the chance he looks as good as Clichy, if not better. He’s very close to overtaking Gael in the first team so another broken foot for him would’ve been awful news. Thankfully it’s only badly bruised and he will be out for the ‘short term’.

A couple minutes after that a bit of quick thinking between Arshavin and Wilshere made it 4-1. Andrey was brought down about 35 yards out but got straight up and made his run into the box catching the Spurs defenders completely by surprise. Wilshere put an easy ball through and Andrey finished well, low into the opposite corner. Arsenal 4, Tottenham 1, lovely. Just before the whistle blew for half time Nasri cleared off the line from Keane who lost his marker from a corner but it was kept out and that was that – I think maybe if they had scored there the second half of extra time might’ve been a bit nervier but it wasn’t to be and we ran out 4-1 winners at White Hart Lane. It was perfect revenge for the 5-1 thrashing we took there not that long ago and normality is restored.

The travelling fans sang, “Shall we make a DVD!” Which was hilarious! Obviously we won’t be making DVD’s, mugs, posters, mouse mats, t-shirts and tattoos because at the end of the day, it’s the Carling Cup. It’s still beating the scum though so we’ll enjoy it all the same.

The draw to Sunderland is forgotten and if we can beat West Brom on Saturday we’ll be back on track. Wenger is currently doing his pre-match conference this afternoon so we’ll get a load of news on that from the official site. We’ll find out just how ‘short term’ Gibbs’ injury is, whether Vermaelen is back and more. Oh, and Cesc looks on track to make Chelsea.

Happy days. Thanks for reading.