Beating Spurs or finishing above them: what’s more important?

What is more important: beating Tottenham or finishing above them? This was the question put to me on my recent appearance for Arsenal Media on the popular YouTube show Arsenal Nation. The answer for me is an easy one: finishing above Tottenham.

Our North London rivals have improved immensely in the last half decade or so and certainly in the last season or two the league results have not given us much to crow about. Bragging rights are an important part of football – rivalries are built and advanced on them. Never is this felt more keenly than in a local derby for often fans of both clubs will share workplaces, and often even homes. The vibrations of a particularly tasty result can be heard and felt for weeks after the event. In fact, the time being five to two in Tottenham still gives me unbridled joy.

Getting one over on your rivals, or finally beating a bogey team feels incredible and it is understandable when fans want that feeling but it is short-lived in the main. Will Leicester fans ever remember, or care if they do, that Arsenal beat them home and away in the 2015/16 season? Of course not. Would any Arsenal supporter swap smashing United for eight when we play them in mid-November for finishing above them? Sure, we’d be avenging that 8-2 defeat and Wenger would finally end the hypnotic hold Mourinho has over us regardless of how crap his teams are in the league but United fans would have the trump card in bragging rights – ‘we finished above you.’

There are few better feelings in an average week in football than beating Sp*rs but at the end of the season those individual wins will mean nothing if we finally succumb and finish behind them for the first time in 22 years. I was 8 years old the last time we finished behind Sp*rs and the ignominy of it is something I am thankful I was barely aware of.

As I told the rest of the Arsenal Nation family, there are six globally recognised religious festivals: Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid, Diwali, Easter and St Totteringham’s Day. How can we worship at the alter of our lord and saviour, Dennis Bergkamp, hallowed be his name, if we do not have a St Totteringham’s Day to celebrate? Finishing above Tottenham is far more important than beating them. The holy grail is to do both of course but one takes precedent over the other.

And there is certainly something rather delicious in being able to laugh at Tottenham’s celebrations over beating us when we finish above them once again. Hark back to 2004 when Sp*rs’ players and fans celebrated deliriously because they fought us to a draw and remember their faces as the crushing realisation set in that not only had they failed to stop Arsenal confirming their title win but The Gunners had actually clinched it on Sp*rs’ home ground.

A 2-2 draw is a rather unremarkable result but the circumstance is what makes that so special. We did not win that day and in the microcosm of that single fixture there were no bragging rights. The significance of the result is why we still crow about it to this day. Had Arsenal confirmed their title a week later or earlier that result would barely warrant mentioning. What I am saying, rather crudely and to the detriment of one of my favourite matches ever, is beating Tottenham is fantastic but given the choice I would always choose to finish above them.

This weekend’s North London Derby is significant not because of the history of the rivalry but for the ramifications for the title. It is a chance for Arsenal to pull clear of a title rival and keep pace with others; it is also a chance for Tottenham to level things up. Rivals or not that is the recipe for an explosive fixture. Then when you factor in the local rivalry and the purity of our mutual hatred you have a fixture with the potential to go nuclear.

I want to win this one so badly. I’ll be in attendance for my second North London Derby ever and like every other Gooner I’m desperate for a win. However, if the result is not to be I will hurt for a few months but will ultimately get over it as long as we continue our trend of finishing above the pride of Middlesex.

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