Arsenal vs Tottenham Hotspur: Expect it to be open

Remember the naughties when games between Arsenal and Tottenham would end in basketball scores?

In the days before Jose Mourinho and the arrival of suffer-ball to these shores, the north London derby was regularly a slug-fest, with the two teams trading blows in ding-dong tussles that would end in with bags of goals and, almost always, an Arsenal win.

There was something tremendously fun about those games, so many of them classics, with a level of attacking abandon and zest for goals that has diminished somewhat as the years have gone by.

These last three of four years, in particular, have been hard with the likes of Nuno, Jose Mourinho, and Antonio Conte reshaping their Tottenham sides into deep-lying, miserly counter-attackers. That’s not to say we’ve been without thrills and spills in that time, more that the derby has settled into a much more predictable pattern.

That might all change today.

The new Spurs manager, Ange Postecoglu, is a suffer-ball denier. Come hell or high water, he sets his teams up to play attacking football and that should be music to any Arsenal fan’s ears. After long years of nip and tuck matches, often decided by cards and penalties, this might be the return of the ding-dong era.

Arsenal’s start to the season has been defined by the opponent’s determination to sit in a deep block and deny us any sort of space. That has been it hugely frustrating for Mikel Arteta’s men and, although they’ve produced plenty of good football, it has made matches much tighter than any of us might like.

We enjoyed some welcome relief from all that drudgery in midweek when PSV came to town and opted to go toe-to-toe with the Gunners. It was brave of them but it did rather play into our hands and the resulting 4-0 win was as comfortable a night as we have had for quite a while.

Frankly, I would be amazed if any coach watched that game and decided it was a good idea to play in a similar way but, if Postecoglu is as wedded to attacking, open football as he has proclaimed, we could be about to see the most open derby we’ve seen in years.

Remember also that, for all our attacking success, we’ve developed something of an Achilles heel at home, conceding far more goals than I’m sure the manager would like. And it is that fly in our ointment that I’m sure Spurs will be looking to exploit today.

All things considered, I can’t see anything but bagfuls of goal today.

From a selection perspective, I would expect a side much the same as the one which lined up against PSV on Wednesday. The only possible change for me would be the re-introduction of Fabio Vieira for Kai Havertz. I don’t expect Gabriel Martinelli will have recovered from his hamstring issue picked up against Everton and, in any case, Leondro Trossard is in excellent form and would arguably have been pushing for a starting berth in any event.

With Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson, and Emile Smith Rowe also available – it means we’ll have plenty of options from the bench if we need them late on.

However we line up, though, I have to say I feel quietly confident about this one. It’s been a long time since we’ve gone into a north London derby in such an assured position and with such an in-form squad. As good as their recent form may have been, this is still a fragile Tottenham squad and one that will be vulnerable if the a goal or two goes in. Let’s hope we can get something on the board early and really turn the screw.