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Spurs Odyssey Preview - Spurs v Arsenal - 20.04.11

· Last Season's Corresponding Game - Spurs 2 Arsenal 1
· This Season's Away Game - Arsenal 2 Spurs 3
· This week - last year
· What happened in the Premiership in Match 33 2009-10

· See the current injury list for all Premiership Teams
· All the Spurs Stats you could hope for here! THFC6061 Sports Stats


Full Record of Spurs -v- Arsenal
 
Prem          Pl  W   D   L  For-Ag  Pts
Home          18  5   9   4  23 -24  24
Away          19  2   7  10  18 -33  13
========================================
Total(Prem)   37  7  16  14  41 -57  37
=======================================
Football Lge
Home(Div 1)   55 24  12  19  93 -83  63
Away(Div 1)   55 16  12  27  65 -85  46
========================================
Total(Div 1) 110 40  24  46 158 -168 109
========================================
Total(Prem)   37  7  16  14  41 -57  37
Total(Div 1) 110 40  24  46 158 -168 109
========================================
Grand Total  147 47  40  60 199 -225 146
========================================

Last Six Premiership results:-

Spurs
 
S'derland  1-2   Spurs
Blackpool  3-1   Spurs
Wolves     3-3   Spurs
Spurs      0-0   West Ham
Wigan      0-0   Spurs
Spurs      3-2   Stoke

Arsenal

Arsenal    1-0   Stoke
Arsenal    0-0   S'derland
West Brom  2-2   Arsenal
Arsenal    0-0   Blackburn
Blackpool  1-3   Arsenal
Arsenal    1-1   Liverpool

Pos        P  W  D  L  F-A  GD  Pts
2 Arsenal 32 18  9  5 63-31 32  63
5 Spurs   31 14 11  6 44-36  8  53

Mine's a double!

I've seen correspondence to the effect that Spurs can do something tomorrow, they haven't done since the 1973-74 season. However, I contend that we last did it in 1992-93. What is it? Winning a league double against our most hated rivals! It doesn't happen too often, and of course it would be great to see it happen at White Hart Lane tomorrow night. The argument is that we didn't "do the double" in anger in 1993, because Arsenal played a weakened side in advance of that year's FA Cup Final against Sheffield Wednesday. Wednesday also fielded a weakened side on that day and lost their last league game, at QPR.

The Spurs side wasn't exactly at its strongest for that win anyway. Apart from double goal scorer John Hendry (Teddy Sheringham scored the other in a 3-1 win), the side included David McDonald at right back, Danny Hill in midfield, and a young Ian Walker in goal in the days when he was Erik Thorstvedt's deputy. Hendry was making only his second full appearance of the season, and got his only two league goals of the season that day.

Back in 1973-74, it was another lesser known Spur that sealed the previous league "double". Alan Gilzean and Martin Chivers had scored second half goals to give us a 2-0 home win in October 1973, whereas in February 1974, 19 year old Chris McGrath scored the only goal of the game at Highbury in front of 38,804 people to secure the "double". McGrath was in his first season in the first team, making 22 (+3) league appearances scoring 5 goals. The full Spurs team in the away game was Jennings; Evans, Naylor; Pratt, England, Beal; McGrath, Perryman, Gilzean, Peters and Coates. Arsenal fielded Bob Wilson; Pat Rice, Sammy Nelson; Storey, Blockley, simpson; Armstrong, Ball, Radford, Kennedy and Chippy Brady. In those days, Bertie Mee was still the Arsenal manager and Bill Nicholson was in his last full season as Spurs' boss. The events at Rotterdam were to have a lasting effect upon "Sir" Bill at the end of that season.

Who can forget the events of last November, when Spurs came back from 2-0 down to win for the first time at The Emirates? It was one of those high days of the last three seasons given to us by Harry Redknapp. One of his first such days was at The Emirates in October 2008 when we drew 4-4. Arguably tomorrow night's game will be Harry's 100th league game in charge of Tottenham, if you include the home game against Bolton which preceded the Arsenal game in 2008. Whilst Clive Allen and Alex Inglethorpe looked after team affairs, Harry did speak to the players before the game and at half-time, when we beat Bolton in that first game.

Going back to November, Spurs finally put to bed their horrible record of 68 games without a win at a "Top Four" ground, whwatever that means these days. It hadn't looked likely at half-time though, when we were two goals down, thanks to Messrs Nasri and Chamakh. PFA Player of the year Gareth Bale saw us on our way to a magnificent come-back though, with a lovely touch from a central position, after Van der Vaart had put him in. After 66 minutes, Luka Modric was subject to an unfair sandwich just outside the Arsenal area, and when Van der Vaart took the free kick, Fabregas of all people was guilty of a needless handball. Rafa put the penalty away to put the scores level. With 5 minutes left, Gareth Bale was fouled for the umpteenth time, and Rafa again stepped up to take the kick from the right hand side. Up stepped Younes Kaboul to flick on a marvellous header beyond the hand of Fabianksi for a sensational winner to cue dancing in the aisles by Spurs fans! Mr Wenger threw his bottle of water to the ground!

Saint Hotspur's Day last year was of course the date of another heroic win for Spurs, as Danny Rose scored a simply sensational goal and Gareth Bale swept home a second just two minutes into the second half. Bendtner's 85th minute goal was nothing more than a consolation.

We need the win tomorrow as much as ever of course, in order to keep the pressure upon Manchester City and to keep the destination of fourth place in our own hands, with that trip to Eastlands still to come. It's not going to be easy of course, and despite their disappointments of three cup defeats in three weeks recently, and too many draws in the Premier League, Arsenal have not lost a league game since their 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford in mid-December. That's a run of 15 league games undefeated. The reason they have lost ground on United is that they have drawn 4 of their last 5 league games. Three of those have been at home, and the natives are not too happy about it.

Let's hope that Harry Redknapp's Spurs can give reason for the ungracious Mr. Wenger to throw a tantrum such as throwing his bottle to the floor, refusing a handshake, or berating the officials over a contested decision. The team news for Spurs is good, with all but the long term absenteess such as Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate, Wilson Palacios and Alan Hutton reporting for duty. That means that William Gallas is likely to line up again against his old team, who he seemed to enjoy beating as much if not more than his team-mates in November. Gallas has also this week described the Spurs fans as the best he's played for, so God Bless him!

I'll predict a repeat of last year's 2-1 scoreline. COME ON YOU SPURS!

· Spurs' recent record in London Derby League matches

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