Not the Usual Suspects, but off to Wembley regardless

‘And like that…*pfff*…he was gone.’ Verbal Kint is referring to other matters entirely when he utters this defining quote in The Usual Suspects, but the abruptness he so skilfully captures with that gesture could just as easily be describing the cathartic release of tension experienced by Tottenham fans at White Hart lane after the 5-1 thumping of their greatest rivals Arsenal in the Carling Cup semi-final second leg. Because for them, on that night, just as suddenly as Kevin Spacey’s character implies with that nonchalant puff of air against his fingers, the pain was gone. Over the course of a ninety minutes in which they blew away their old North London adversaries with thrilling, calculated, counter-attacking football all the lingering, painful memories of derbies gone by disappeared as if in a puff of smoke.

Nine long years of suffering, vanished. Twenty one games of bitter rage and sorrow, cleansed. Robbie Keane’s crucial penalty miss at the Emirates Stadium with the score poised at 1-1, forgotten. Cesc Fabregas in September, dictating the play at White Hart Lane as though it were his very own Subbuteo pitch, now but a distant recollection. Julio Baptista’s quickfire double at the same stage of the Carling Cup last season and the subsequent taunts from the Arsenal faithful who had just seen their side recover from 2-0 down, washed away. Flashbacks of Emmanuel Adebayor, Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires, Kanu and others, erased. Grim memories of Thierry Henry carving them open time and time again, usually followed by the mercurial Frenchman trotting off towards the Spurs end to rub it in, scowling at the fans in their misery and triumphantly kissing the Arsenal badge. We could go on. Yes, Spurs fans have had to swallow a lot in this fixture over the years and with each passing failure the hatred has been buried deeper and deeper, albeit burning no less brightly.

All along they waited for a night like the one they have just witnessed. And finally it came, even more emphatically than they might ever have allowed themselves to dream, as Juande Ramos’ men provided in such a magnificent performance the perfect platform for Tottenham fans everywhere to cast off the shackles of all the disappointments and all the taunts, and discard them on the road to Wembley.

Of course Arsenal in defeat have two ready made explanations – one that they played their inexperienced youngsters and, failing that, the old fallback that it was only the Carling Cup, the ugly duckling of domestic trophies. Whichever way they wish to play it the truth is that neither excuse holds much weight. The eleven that started against Spurs have more than 550 top flight league appearances between them, and that is not including the likes of Adebayor, Fabregas and Eduardo da Silva who were all thrown on by Arsene Wenger at various stages of the game. Of the fourteen that took part, eight are full internationals. Citing inexperience is but fruitless rationale.

And on the second point, granted it may be less significant to the Gunners than other trophies but Arsenal Football Club will always want to win a North London derby no matter the situation and particularly with a trip to Wembley at stake. For their part, the players certainly did not behave as though they believed it to be ‘just the Carling Cup,’ – Nicklas Bendtner’s sore nose bares testament to that. And as their fans left the stadium after sixty minutes, looking downcast and humiliated, one seriously doubts that they plodded off casually laughing to themselves, comforted by the insignificance of the occasion. Not with roughly 30,000 fans gleefully waving them off.

No, there is nothing comforting about a 5-1 mauling, and no excuse can mask the discomfort. But if the drubbing served up by Tottenham and the ensuing displays of sheer passionate joy and emotion showed us anything, it was the delicious ability of bitter footballing rivalries to re-invent themselves. Arsenal fans may not admit it, but privately that defeat and the ruthless manner in which it was executed will unquestionably have hurt them. And the jibes that followed, and will doubtless continue for days on end from Spurs fans will burn inside them until the two sides next meet, by which time Arsenal will be desperate for revenge. For now it is Tottenham who play centre stage, heading off to Wembley with bragging rights in tow while Arsenal find themselves in the unfamiliar position of having to grin and bear it, relegated to North London’s undercard in the short term at least. And therein lies football’s intrinsic ability to reinvigorate itself. In just ninety minutes, the tables have turned.

Perhaps in going unbeaten for nine long years against their hated rivals, Arsenal forgot what makes this derby so intense. Maybe out of unbridled dominance has grown an underestimating of the magnitude of this great English derby. Well any complacency has been brutally punished, the result being that Arsenal now have a succinct reminder of exactly why they enjoyed beating the neighbours they so vehemently despise in the first place. And that is what being a football fan is all about.

They say one high outweighs ten lows in football, which is why people, the fans, keep coming back. By winning so emphatically Tottenham’s one enormous high has blown away all the years of lows. And conversely for Arsenal, the humiliating low merely jogs the memory as to why the nine years of highs always felt so sweet. Just like that the roles have been reversed. The onus is now on Arsenal to emerge from all the mocking and settle the score when the two sides next meet, something they will no doubt be keen to do no matter what the circumstances. And so the saga continues.

picture courtesy of Getty Images

Arsenal, English League Cup, Tottenham Hotspur