Hello to all of you reading this on a Sunday or Monday or maybe even 3 years time when you are caught reminiscing about this game making it 20 games unbeaten against Spurs.
Like the title says, 11 seconds, that is all it took for Spurs to crumble and fall to the knees (literally when Cesc went past half of the Spurs team for his goal).
To avoid rambling unnecessarily for the post here are the observations of the derby game pre, during, after match in no order.
1. A clean sheet in a derby match – makes this win extra special.
2. Spurs made defensive mistakes? So did we. Gallas handball anyone? The difference is we made it count, a sign of a top team.
3. That is 20 games unbeaten against the auld enemy. Precisely the reason why they are still playing catch up with us. I’ve lost count of how many Tottenham managers have indulged in trash talk like Redknapp’s pre match comments and fell away one by one.
4. The day will come when one day Spurs will end this record. But it takes nothing away from the fact that we have enjoyed, largely, 10 years of league bliss against them.
5. To put it into further context, even Man City beat their city rivals when they were a pretty awful side and didn’t have the financial clout they have now.
6. Keane’s big match comment was that their squad was on a par if not better than us…
7. …so how come Eduardo could have had a hatrick while Pavlyuchenko barely had a kick? Eating humble pie are we Keane?
8. This talk also lacked further substance considering Keane had failed to make it a top4 club in Liverpool.
9. Spurs aerial threat was emphatically taken apart by Vermaelen. Crouch won his share of the headers but they were meek efforts. It isn’t about how tall you are, but about the timing of the leap.
10. The fullbacks had an outstanding game. Clichy was superb on his interceptions and Sagna even managed to get 2 assists. Do you remember many occasions when Bentley and then later Bale causing us problems on the wing?
11. Song was commanding in midfield. His cause was helped further when Redknapp inexplicably decided to play Palacios in left midfield at the start. But take nothing away from Alex who got better and better.
12. Ever seen Fabregas so pumped up this season? Err, yes in almost all the games this year since he returned from injury back in April.
13. His goal reminded me of the one Henry scored against Spurs. Not as good but it still left Spurs on the knees in more ways than one.
14. 2 goals for Van Persie. Both with his weaker right foot, both very poacher-esque. Who says we haven’t got a fox in the box?
15. Towards the end Bassong fell to the floor, not because he was in awe of us but rather because he was injured. Don’t ask why but I felt sorry for him.
16. And then I remembered, one of our players got injured at White Hart Lane in February and the Spurs fans cheered him ironically. At least we had the dignity to not act in such puerile terms.
17. To claim that we were turning on our team, prior to the goals, is to put an extremely negative spin on affairs. Our fans were awesome this game. End of.
Finally: this game was shown 4th on Match of the Day. I’m beginning to believe in that theory that someone at the BBC is a Spurs fan. How can a derby match be so low in the list? I’ll leave that and other aspects for you to focus on.
