North London Derby

By: Richard | December 21st, 2007

(Let me preface by saying I wrote this blog while thinking that this weekends game was at the Lane and not the Emirates. Obviously I’m an idiot. My apologies for such a sloppy mistake.)

Well, it’s derby time! I’m excited and nervous knowing that the strides that Spurs have made over the past few weeks could be more a matter of two steps forward and three steps back should this derby result not be favorable.

I’ve faced facts over the past few months, and this is hard to say, but the Gunners are playing wonderful football right now, recent minor bumps in the road aside, and while Spurs are definitely looking like a different team under Juande Ramos they are still far from a finished product. Sure, City and Pompy may be off to nice starts in the league and beating both teams over the past week does put a little swagger in Spurs step but the NLD always seems to be a different animal.

Whenever Spurs seem like they could have an edge going in the Arse seem to bring all Yids firmly back to earth. It’s more then a pattern, it’s more then a trend, it’s a cold hard fact. So then maybe, just maybe, with our back line ravaged by injuries and the ~~EPL front runners coming to the Lane it will be Spurs time to pull off something memorable~~, whoops…. it’s at the Emirates… a draw would be nice! (this was the mistake I was referring to earlier)

This will be Juande Ramos’ first game against one of the big four and, unlike Martin Jol, I can’t imagine our manger looking at this game as anything but a chance to make a statement. This is a different team. They attack the ball, unlike Jol’s Spurs. Under Jol, Wenger’s side was able to control play, pace, tempo and the ball while creating chance after chance. So what will Juande do? (I can’t help but think of those “What Would Jesus Do?” wrist bands right now) I can’t imagine we’ll see anything less then a solid effort and that alone is a massive change of confidence.

Ramos has made Spurs a mesure better in my estimation already through his superior tactics. That being said this is without a doubt the biggest nut he has tried to crack, and I can’t wait to see the result! COYS!