Younes, Hubris, and The Nightmare Derby
69 comments November 22nd, 2010
Arsenal 2 – Spurs 3 (Nasri 9, Chamakh 27, Bale 50, Van der Vaart 67 (pen), Kaboul 86)
Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
So we’ve arrived at the cold hard reality of Monday morning, and Saturday’s result remains the same. No amount of water-splashing, face-slapping or child-sacrificing can erase the horror of that second half. For those who walk in to London offices this morning to sit opposite Tottenham-supporting colleagues, it will feel all the more devastatingly real.
Arsene said the cause of our collapse was a “mystery”. Whilst many are disappointed by his refusal to point fingers and grab lapels, he has a point. The manner in which we lost is mystifying, especially when you consider that at half-time, the game seemed won.
Within ten minutes we were in front. Going in to the match a lot of the talk was about Samir Nasri – it was his name that was being sung most often in the build-up to kick-off – and he lived up to his billing by scoring the opening goal. When Gomes hesitated to sweep up a Cesc through-ball, Nasri got there first and finished from the most improbable of angles.
As Spurs were forced to push out, we found space on the counter-attack, and that’s how we scored our second goal – a swift move ended with Andrey Arshavin taking advantage of an Alan Hutton injury to get at his man and cross for Chamakh to poke home.
For the entirety of the half, we dominated. The mesmeric passing of Nasri, Arshavin and Fabregas resembled a matador, teasing a bull. Only this bull was drugged, dazed, and uninterested in any kind of conflict. Tottenham were terrible in the first half, and it lulled us in to a sense of security as false as Bacary Sagna’s hair extensions. Carelessness was beginning to creep in: Chamakh could have been more clinical when set free by Fabregas, but dallied, and the ball was lost.
It was a mistake he’d repeat on a couple of occasions in the already infamous second half. Harry Redknapp knew he had to change things, and did, introducing Jermaine Defoe and switching to a 4-4-2. The key, one hopes Arsene would have insisted at half-time, was to keep it tight and kill off any Spurs hopes of a comeback with an authoritative and robust start to the half.
Instead, within five minutes, we’d conceded. It was at that moment that the entire game turned on its head. There was a gnawing inevitability about Spurs’ comeback, from the moment that the diminutive Defoe was allowed to win a header and Van der Vaart played in Bale to finish calmly across Fabianski. With that, our two goal advantage was cut in half, and our confidence even more significantly damaged. As composure disappeared, so did quality. We had chances in the second half (Laurent Koscielny was guilty of one particularly glaring miss), but the course of our hubristic decline was already set.
The manner in which Spurs got their equaliser was a microscomic of the turnaround in our performance. In the first half, Cesc had been imperious. In the second, he was idiotic. His handball to concede the penalty was inexplicable and thus unjustifiable. He’s only young, but he’s experienced, and he should know better.
Drawing 2-2 would have been bad enough – it brought back painful memories of being pegged back to 4-4 just a couple of seasons ago. We, of course, managed to go one better, allowing Younes Kaboul to get across his man and nod home a gut-wrenching winning-goal.
Spurs’ second half performance was as excellent as their first half was poor. I’m not sure if our performance was that much worse, or if the fact that they went at our backline more simply exposed faults that had been there all along. Whichever way you look at it, we choked, big time. A 1-0 defeat to Newcastle can be chalked off as a one-off, but it is this sort of capitulation that has the pundits shaking their heads gravely and saying we can’t win the league. And whilst Chelsea’s defeat at Birmingham means that mathematically we still have every chance, losing three home games in the first half of the season is hardly the mark of Champions.
When we surrendered a two goal lead at Wigan at the back end of last season, it was incredibly painful. But to do so at home, against your most bitter rivals, was just nightmarish. To lose from that position borders on the plain unprofessional. If you’re doing your job correctly, it shouldn’t happen.
We are tired of making excuses for this team. They simply have to step up now. Arsenal fans are disappointed, but more than that they are hurt. Let’s hope the players are hurting too, as it might give them the motivation to respond in the required fashion.
Till tomorrow.
