The North London Divide | Where Arsenal and Tottenham Collide!

Here’s another guest post, this time from Arsenal fan Goonblogger from The Goon Blog.

The ultimate day of Spud mocking could come at our game against Wigan if we claim three points and the Spuds draw. I have been mocked several times by disgruntled Spuds about celebrating the fact they can no longer finish above us but it has happened so many times now its become an annual event…up there with the likes of Christmas.

With Sp*rs looking about as consistent as…well Sp*rs…..I have a feeling that St. Totts will fall on 11/04/09 this year and I for one will be celebrating it with copious amounts of laughter and alcoholic beverages.

Arsenal on the other hand are looking like a team possessed and really going for glory, the return of the non-spitting Spaniard and club captain Fabregas, along with the Tognator, Theo Walcott and soon
Robin van Persie and Eduardo, the attacking talent available is probably the most potent and classy than is available anywhere else, Europe or worldwide.

I’m sure all Gooners remember that last years St. Totts fell at the earliest time ever…the start of March. I will give you a rundown of a few previous dates:

07/08: 9 March 2008.
06/07: 21 April 2007
05/06: 7 May 2006: Lasagne anyone?
04/05: 2 April 2005
03/04: 13 March 2004
02/03: 24 March 2003

Pleasant reading from an Arsenal perspective and St Totts looks sure to be an annual event for many years yet!

Catch my daily mumblings on the Arsenal world without fail on The Goon Blog.

‘til next time arsefans.

Up the Arsenal!

This is a guest post from lifelong Gunner’s fan Vertino about the man most Gooners love to hate, Robbie Keane. Vertino is author of the blog Gunners Today

When Robbie Keane finishes his careers he might well feel satisfied. Or he might not. “Arsenal have been successful, and that’s hard for Spurs fans to take.” Not my words, the words of the famous RK15.

Prior to joining Liverpool, the club he supported as a kid, Keane spent 6 years at the Lane. This nowadays is considered to be a good measure of loyalty. Keane didn’t attract half as much scorn and derision as Berbatov’s departure (who let’s face treated Tottenham as a transit stop to Old Trafford). Yet just 6 months or so later, Keane fled Liverpool as though it were some sort of prison camp. If re-signing Defoe was not laughable and frankly ridiculous, I had no words to describe this re-signing. I mean wasn’t it just the other day when he appeared on Soccer AM talking about his favourite Liverpool players? Funny how things change, isn’t it? Mind you I don’t expect much from a club whose manager claimed he was an Arsenal fan, then a West Ham fan etc etc etc. That’s no way to win approval from a club who hates those two clubs more than a fat kid hates exercising.

Keane’s goal scoring record is not in question. Wherever he has been, he has scored goals. Well, apart from Inter Milan where he was only there for like half a season. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Leeds United were the club who rescued him from his Italian nightmare back then. Another season at Leeds before they fell apart and lo and behold Hoddle decided to take a chance on him. Managers came and went at the Lane but Keane survived. At one point he even came oh so close to taking Spurs into the Champions League but a combination of TH14 and well, crap Spurs performance really, put paid to that.

Despite winning the league cup last season, Tottenham’s season fell apart. Keane realized perhaps then, that he couldn’t achieve much else so he jumped at the opportunity to join Rafa’s revolution at raving mad Anfield. However there was a problem. Apparently he didn’t fit in the Liverpool system. Well done Rafa! But more importantly, Keane didn’t feel the need to give it at least another few months before he left. Instead, Liverpool were so incensed by Harry Redknapp’s alleged continental style tapping up of Keane, that they actually opened negotiations to sell him. And Keane did just what Liverpool wanted. So he’s back now at his “spiritual home” as Hoddle called it.

I can’t help thinking, you’re part of a team that is challenging for the title and the Champions League and you decide to join a club that is in relegation, at best mid-table mediocrity. And yet, Keane could have the last laugh (a rueful one perhaps) when Liverpool travel to White Hart Lane. Way to go, Robbie Keane!

Hi all,

This post is guest written by Avenell from the Arsenal Blog Avenell Road

He is the first guest writer to appear on The North London Divide.

If you want to write a post on The North London Divide then please contact us.

This is Ave’s post. Enjoy.

I was looking for the April fools day joke on Sky Sports News today……. I think I have found it, no, not that Alan “elbows” Shearer is going to manage the Trophy less ones until the end of the season.
No, its even funnier than that. The Spuds want a new stadium. And it’s going to hold 59,000 fans. Are they serious?

They spend £50 million pounds on players a year just to avoid relegation, yet now they want to build a £400 million pound stadium just to be like us.

How will they survive this move without a Wenger who spends under £2 million pounds a year net? They spend 10 times that on compensation for ex managers who have all failed to break into their “Holy Grail”, the top 4! Ha ha

Just to make things more interesting they are building on the site of White Hart Lane. So where are they going to play for 3 years? Maybe Wembley? I can just picture 32,000 Spuds huddling into the corner of Wembley on a cold Channel 4 Thursday night. It is going to be a sight for sore eyes. But a funny one at that!

This could be the last move made by the Spuds to join the Premiership elite because it is obvious they can’t compete on the pitch at the moment. If it all goes wrong it could spell the end of the Spuds as we know it.

Darren Bent is not the best player in the world but I believe he gets some unfair stick at times.

Yes, he cost a lot of money but was that his fault? Tottenham have a proven track record of over-spending, Bent is just  another case.

Fabio Cappello is no mug and he has called Bent up to his England squad. That must say something?

Sure, Bent may not be a world-beater but he is a good, hard-working honest player. I know I’d rather have a player like that than a tosser who doesn’t give a fuck about the club.

Two years ago Aaron ‘Lick em up’ Lennon was the player to fill David Beckham’s boots for England. In more recent times he would have been lucky if Beckham let him clean his boots.

I can’t understand how a player with such potential went downhill so fast. It was even faster than Aaron Lennon himself. And that is fast.

Lennon has an attribute that scares the living shit out of defenders. He can run through their legs………..Nah seriously he has pace to burn. The problem is he does all the hard work, running through defenders legs, very very fast, but then he crosses to the fat Spud in row Z. There is no end product.

It must be very frustrating to watch every week. Not for me, I piss me pants, but for Spuds. A player with so much potential, a potential world-beater ( I wrote that with a straight face) who can do everything but the very thing he is meant to do. Cross the fucking ball.

There has been a slight improvement this season. From what I’ve seen he has been one of the best players for Tottenham but unless he improves his crossing then he will never be a regular in the England squad.

Mind you, Harry Redknapp will see to that himself. I thought Tottenham were pioneers for the English game. Fabio Cappello doesn’t agree. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…….

There is no denying the fact that a fit Ledley King is a class act of a player. I’ve always rated him despite the fact he plays for Tottenham. The problem is he is hardly ever fit and the reason is his knee swells up bigger than Robbie Keane’s head between matches.

I’ve no doubt that he would be a big plus for England, and obviously Tottenham, if he could have a knee transplant. Unfortunately for King, Tottenham and England, medical procedures are not that far advanced and whole knee transplants are unavailable.

Seriously, it is a real shame that King has this problem because a player of his quality deserves to have more England caps. Despite his call-up to the recent England squad I can’t see him gaining many more. Tottenham can find a way of utilizing King by allowing him the freedom not to train between games or only using him once a week.

England would not have the luxury of using King this way at International tournaments. With games coming thick and fast it would be an obvious problem and I doubt that Fabio Capello, the ruthless man he is, would take that gamble.

And for Ledley King, that is a real shame.

When it was announced that Tottenham had signed Giovani Dos Santos I was bewildered! When the price was confirmed at £4.7 million I felt sick.

This lad had real talent and played for Barcelona. Now he had signed for Spurs for peanuts. To be honest I felt a pang of jealousy. At first.

I felt that something couldn’t be right. A player of his calibre coming to the Premiership for such a low price. Something didn’t add up.

I’d heard he was a party animal but if Ronaldinho could go out on the booze then so could Dos Santos. After all, he was being labelled the new Ronaldinho by some. 

Anyway, the new Ronaldinho now plays in the Championship with Ipswich. Some say this is a step up from Tottenham, some say that Spurs have loaned him to Ipswich so he can acclimatise to the league because Tottenham will be there soon.

All I know is if people thought that White Hart Lane was a come down from the Nou Camp then Dos Santos must have had a big shock arriving at Portman Road. It must have been paradise.

So what have Tottenham done to Dos Santos? I thought they were going to transform him from budding world superstar to actual world superstar. There has been a transformation, but not the way it was expected.

There are times in life that you know who your mates are. Today is one of those days.

My co-author Mabbs is supposed to be a pal of mine even though he is a Spud. I can deal with that and I even put up with it but today he crossed the line.

About five minutes before the Spuds started against Aston Villa I had a vision of them winning 2-1. I didn’t have time to put on a bet with it being so close to kick-off so I thought I’d ring a well-known betting man, my friend Mabbs, to do it on-line.

Unfortunately for me Mabbs had decided to turn off his mobile and for some reason wouldn’t answer his house phone. I tried about 25 times but to no avail.

Around 20 minutes into the game, when the Spuds were already one-up, he decides to ring me back. I tell him what I wanted and he says that the way the game was going I’d have no chance anyway. He said the way Villa were playing they would beat Tottenham about 7-1.

I rang Mabbs on full-time NOW  knowing the game had ended 2-1 to Tottenham and he laughed. He thought it was funny that he hadn’t put the bet on but was adamant it was OK because Tottenham had secured fourth place for Arsenal.

What a tosser!

Mabbs, the Spuds may have helped Arsenal’s cause (although of course not directly) but it would have felt a lot better knowing I’d have won money on it too!

Cheers Mabbs………..

Harry ‘The Deserter’ Redknapp is already planning life without Tottenham Hotspur and to be totally honest that hardly surprises me.

The bloke doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything but himself and his precious reputation amongst the media.

Because he is such a diamond geezer it is conveniently forgotten that he walked out of Portsmouth, twice, and left Southampton in the mire after his appointment resulted in them being relegated.

He said that he would walk out of Tottenham if they were relegated. I’ve no doubt if that were the case then he would blame the relegation on somebody else.

The man never shoulders any of the blame and was happy to accept praise during the Spuds mini-revival earlier in the season but refuses to accept any criticism for the poor form that followed. Instead he blames the players and never the man in the mirror.

Perhaps after the way Tottenham have treated previous managers themselves and Redknapp are made for each other. Both are treacherous.

I wonder who will jump first, Harry or Tottenham?