Arsenal: It’s impossible to say that Tottenham are the better club

Arsenal are heading into the dreaded North London Derby at the Emirates and people are again jumping the gun. Tottenham are still inferior by a mile.

Arsenal aren’t near to an implosion. They aren’t doom to relegation. They aren’t going to shrivel and die like an ant under a microscope under the sun. You hear all these doomsday prophets and then you check the table and notice that the Gunners, who, mind you are in awful condition, are just three points from the top four.

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And here we are, heading into a North London Derby that can turn everything around, and people are out there saying that Tottenham are the better club. Ray Parlour is the latest. He says it’s “painful to admit” but the Spuds are better.

For starters, the two sides have yet to meet this year, so how you can go off and say that Spurs are better just because they sit four points above 11 games into the season is a mighty big stretch.

On paper, both teams look good. And on the pitch, both teams have had their struggles. Arsenal are coming off a 3-1 loss to Manchester City where there was plenty to gripe about, but the Spurs are coming off a stale 1-0 win over Crystal Palace.

Points are the thing, sure. But if they play like they did against Palace against us? We’ll smash them into a fine powder and let the breeze carry them off to the horizon. There will be nothing left of this “better than Arsenal” Spurs side.

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What I don’t get is how you can admit a club is better than another when they have nothing to show for it. Arsenal are in their worst state in the past two decades and we’ve still won three trophies in the past five years.

Meanwhile, Spurs are the best they’ve been in ages and they’ve won diddly. Not a single thing. And you can yap about “yeah, but here and now, the Spurs are the better side” all you want, but until I see them face to face on the pitch, I won’t believe it.

Because one way or the other is pure speculation. You’re judging them based on performances against other teams, but that’s hardly enough to base an evaluation such as this on.

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Keep the faith, damnit. They are still the Spurs and we are still the Arsenal. You don’t all of a sudden say that the order of nature has been reversed and the sea lion is now superior to the shark just because the sea lion is having himself a good swim lately.