ARSENAL ARE DANCING ON CONTE'S IMAGINARY CEILING

"Arsenal have reached their ceiling.." were the words that rang out just before this weekends North London Derby. Conte who uttered these words then witnessed his team be totally over run by a team that threaten to reach the hights of the Sistine Chapel, wave to Michelanglo and then smash through his artwork to an even higher level.

It is not the first time a Spurs manager has suffered with a poor choice of words. Who can forget an over excited Andre Villa-Boas celebrating his teams 2-1 home victory over Arsenal by saying that Spurs can keep Arsenal in a "Negative Spiral". Arsenal responded by being unbeaten for the remainder of the season and beating Spurs to a Champions League spot.

It seems Spurs managers never learn!

What a fantastic experience it was at The Emirates on Saturday. The early kick off did not dampen the atmosphere as demonstrated by the 'North London forever' song being sang loud and in complete unison throughout the stadium. Is it not strange that at a time the team and fans are really coming together after years of friction we also have the birth a club Anthem that I believe will go on to rival Liverpool's, its perfection!

As for the game. You will struggle to find such a one sided game between these clubs. I have never seen a Spurs team who were so happy to just defend. As I suggested in my last blog I knew the tactics would be to hit us on the break, but what we saw was quite astounding. The Spurs defence was so compact they were tripping over each other! It was going to take something special to break down despite all the possession Arsenal were enjoying and Partay duly provided it with a stunning goal.

Spurs hit back out of nothing with a penalty handed to them by Arsenal on a plate. A half clearance by Xhaka was followed by a poor challenge by Gabriel and one of the biggest cheats in football at the moment Richarlison was up ended. I was fuming. We have so many times in the past handed teams draws or even victories by our mistakes and on the surface it appeared that this was still in our DNA. Maybe this is harsh, time will tell.

Arsenal took the lead soon into the second half following a Spurs defensive mix up and then a red card was shown to Royal. I had no idea what lead to this card but it left us with a sense that this game was really in the bag now, especially if we add one more. Xhaka stepped up and smashed the ball home resulting in pandemonium!! It was a great moment. It was confirmation that the crucial 3 points were heading our way, we were still top of the league....and we had beaten Spurs!

The sending off proved to be quite a moment for many reasons, it created the very surreal situation where at 3-1 Arsenal were quite happy not to concede a goal which would result in a tense ending, whilst Spurs were happy not to concede any more goals and therefore prevent humiliation. So we saw both teams towards the end wasting time, quite incredible.

Let us not be under any doubt here, that performance by Arsenal was an absolute master class. I do not even think they even reached 4th gear, Some Spurs fans and pundits, but not all to be fair, will try and convince themselves that they were in the game and the sending off was so key, I think the sending off actually helped Spurs from being beaten by a larger score line. It basically finished the competition with the mass defensive substitutions that followed.

So the atmosphere, the performance, the incredible bench at Arteta's disposal and the scoreline point us to one direction. Up. And the fans know this as shown by something I have never seen before at The Emirates. The entire stadium, lower and upper, remained in their seats until a long time after the final whistle.

It is an exciting time to be an Arsenal fan, and I think others are starting to wake up to this.

So we move on the Liverpool on Sunday. I remember as a kid only knowing who we would be playing the following week by reading the Sunday papers fixture list. If ever I saw we were playing Liverpool my heart would drop as it would normally end with a defeat, especially at Anfield. It has been the same in recent years, but times are changing. We can go into this game with our heads up high, chests out and show Liverpool no respect. We can now take our game to them and win this. Am I being too confident? This team have earned the right to have this confidence. Liverpool are coming to our fortress....let them try and fight to take something from us!

REF WATCH!

Credit where credit is due, I thought Anthony Taylor was spot on for the North London Derby. My natural bias questioned the penalty decision but when I saw it on TV it was quite blatant. The red card decision was backed by many including Jemaine Jenas so it had to be the right decision!

In fact it was very quiet on the referee and VAR front after a tumultuous few weeks pre international break. The only criticism of note raised was by Leeds following the dismissal of Sinisterra, with a chorus of 'You don't know what you're doing' after the final whistle in front of their manager on the sidelines serving his touch line ban. Unfortunately for them it appears the referee knew exactly what he was doing as I feel both yellows were justified.

So we have a European night to look forward to before the big one, Liverpool at home. Can you imagine if we make it seven wins in eight?? We might even attract some praise..but then again maybe not!

Speak soon....thanks so much for reading.

Up the Gunners!!

Rob

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