Cam someone please confirm that Mikel Arteta’s nickname is “Artetz”?
...they do not.
At Bramall Lane, Jamie Vardy has scored in injury-time, celebrating by sliding towards the corner flag and splitting it with a studs-up challenge. Great stuff – though not for poor Chris Wilder, whose team now trail 2-1 and will remain bottom with one point from 11 games, unless they score from this corner....
“Care to make a bold prediction Daniel?” asks Shooby Taylor. “A safe ‘Jose special’ of 0-0 is not allowed, of course. I’m going for 2-1 to Spurs, which seems one hundred percent completely fair considering I am relentlessly pro-Mourinho no matter what club he is with.”
I think Spurs will win because they’re by far the better side in by far the better form, and I don’t think sitting back and waiting – how Arsenal have won a few big games – will work tonight. But if they press how they pressed Man United, that might make things awkward.
On that point, I never subscribed to the theory that the problem with Mourinho was an outdated style of football. I’m absolutely certain that his first Chelsea team would be top of “this league”. The problem was that he’d allowed his less good traits to consume his absolutely brilliant traits, and he was also trying to impose his style of football and management on players and personalities not suited to them. At Spurs, though, he’s got a dressing room run by Harry Kane along with a team prepared to do what he says who are fantastic on the counter. I do wonder if there’s a level they might not get to, though – a midfield of Hojbjerg, Ndombele and Lo Celso would give them the option of competing with the league’s better midfields – but for now, things are going pretty well.
“It was wise for Certain Media Outlets to run those Mourinho is ruining Spurs articles early on,” says Jason Graff, “because with his track record, they would’ve otherwise had to wait until his third or fourth year in charge to do so.”
I’m not sure anyone said Mourinho was “ruining Spurs”, especially as he was only appointed because things were already pretty bad. I also think it was fair to wonder if he was finished as an elite-level manager, given the state of things when he left Madrid, Chelsea and Man United. For which reason, there was nothing wrong with fearing the worst when he took the Spurs job, and when things started to go badly. Moreover, Spurs have had a decent start to the season, but that’s it. They may go on to win stuff, but the likelihood remains that they will not, so we’re not yet able to say that Mourinho is back. I hope we get to that point though, and if we do, I’ll be happy to say I was wrong.
Lacazette, then. I’ll level with you, I thought he’d be away from Arsenal in the summer because I thought that when Arteta was appointed, he’d have been identified as someone on decent wages, whose value was rapidly decreasing, who’s neither good enough nor young enough to take the club where it wants to be. For those reasons, I expected him to play very little in the second half of the season, essentially forced to find another club. But, more or less, Arteta opted to pick his best side at the time rather than settle a side that might become good in the future, which (I think) is one of the major reasons for the current situation. I’m not surprised he’s back in today because that’s what happens when a manager doesn’t seem sure about anything – you go from this to that and back again, in the hope that something you know is a long-term bust gets you a short-term win.
Arteta, meanwhile, changes things yet again. David Luiz is out so Rob Holding comes in, but the most important alteration is Partey for Ceballos. Arsenal have been missing him for about a decade, but they’ve particularly missed him these last few weeks, and how good he is – very – will be elevated by how good they need him to be – very very. The best players are like that. Otherwise, Lacazette, who scored in midweek, comes in for Willock, for Aubameyang moving back to the left wing.
Reflections: Spurs make two changes from last weekend, one at the back and one in midfield. Joe Rodon, who had a pretty decent game apart from the bit where he almost gifted Chelsea a goal and the other bit where he nearly gifted Chelsea a goal, sits this one out, because Toby Alderweireld – “Toby” to some – is fit again. Otherwise, Mourinho brings in Lo Celso for Ndombele, who isn’t in the squad. You’d assume he’s injured, but there’s always the chance that he missed out Wayne Rooney when listing the young players to whom Mourinho handed league debuts, or similar.
Tottenham Hostspur (a deliberately inflexible 4-3-3): Lloris; Aurier, Alderweireld, Dier, Reguilon; Sissoko, Hojbjerg, Lo Celso; Bergwijn, Kane Son. Subs: Hart, Rodon, Davies, Winks, Moura, Bale, Vinicius.
Arsenal (a what can you do 4-3-3): Leno; Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney; Xhaka, Partey, Saka; Willian, Lacazette, Aubameyang. Subs: Runarsson, Mustafi, Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Ceballos, Willock, Nketiah.
Poor man, poor man, poor man: Martin Atkinson (Drighlington)
Even if he doesn’t win another match, José Mourinho is an all-time great manager, coming form nowhere to impose himself on the game through force of talent, personality and will. When he took over at Porto – earned through years of toil – they were fifth in the league and just over two years later, they were Europa League and European champions; at Chelsea, he won consecutive titles and inspired a a team which lasted a generation; with Inter, he took an alright team to the treble; at Madrid, he finished above the greatest club side ever; and at Manchester United, he finished a distant second to Manchester City. Incredible.
But because football is a continuum there will always be new questions, and another one stands before Mourinho today: can he spoil the English game’s most reliably entertaining fixture? The portents are positive. Last weekend, he returned to Chelsea and deliberately restricted Tanguy Ndombele, Harry Kane and Heung-min Son – three of the funnest players in the country – to counters and scraps, in aid of a goalless draw that did little for either club. Expletive Nihilists 1-0 Expletive Crybabies.
Today, though, is different. Both Manchester clubs, along with Chelsea, have already won this weekend, Spurs are at home, and a third game without a win sounds like a sequence. In addition to which, Mikel Arteta is a lot of what Mourinho despises: a preaching discipline of Pep Guardiola with even better hair, who did little to earn his privileged path into a plum job. Taking dastardly pleasure in booting him when he’s down would Mourinho – and football – incarnate – and he knows has the the team to do it.
Arsenal, meanwhile, desperately need something today. In the league, they’ve lost five of their last six games, scoring just twice – a penalty and a header from a corner – looking staid and weak in the process. Though the significance of Thomas Partey’s absence must not be overlooked, things were not right even with him, the co-ordinated patterns of attack that Arteta was meant to bring looking like they were designed by a sleepy toddler with Etch-a-Sketch access.
And Arteta will know that in an open game, his team will probably take a hiding. Their defence is ill-equipped to deal with Spurs’ attack and their attack is insufficiently coherent to frighten Spurs’ slightly dodgy defence. So actually, today’s question should be: can he spoil the English game’s most reliably entertaining fixture? This is going to be intense.
Kick-off: 4.30pm GMT
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