Arsenal and Tottenham prepare to renew bitter rivalry but face the same big problem | OneFootball

As Marcus Rashford looks beyond Tottenham Hotspur’s interest and to European clubs, Arsenal have found they can no longer look as far as the summer. Mikel Arteta has been in discussion with the club hierarchy about bringing forward plans for a “project attacker”, with their hands finally forced by Gabriel Jesus’ ACL injury.

Some at the club would have said they should have had such a player in place before this season. Arteta wants a physically imposing forward who can grow, with Sporting’s Viktor Gyokeres, Paris Saint-Germain’s Randal Kolo Muani and Brighton’s Evan Ferguson all raised, and RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko the ideal profile.

The hope is to break the recent block, and maybe break a ceiling. On the latter, there’s a fact that those close to Arteta feel worth reminding people of, especially amid all of the emotive debate that has followed the recent drop in form.

Only eight managers in Premier League history have driven their team to 89 points in a 38-game season. They are Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Antonio Conte, Sir Alex Ferguson, Roberto Mancini, Arsene Wenger and… Arteta. One further fact naturally stands out from that. Arteta is the only one of those managers not to win the Premier League. While that will be held against the Spaniard, it shows how high the threshold has been in the competition's Guardiola era.

The return is all the more impressive given where Arsenal were as a club as recently as 2020-21. Very few clubs get to that level and even the legendary Wenger only did it once. Despite this, Arteta’s inability to add further silverware to his 2019-20 FA Cup has fed a rather hysterical recent debate that he might have taken the club as far as he can; that he himself has a ceiling.

It will sound familiar to some at Spurs, if they can bring themselves to empathise with their closest rivals.

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Mikel Arteta and Ange Postecoglou may well be able to sympathise with each other’s situation (PA)

Many of the same things were said about Mauricio Pochettino and his time at White Hart Lane. This was even as he secured 86 points in 2016-17, which is by significant distance the club’s best league performance in 64 years. The modern economy of football means there can be no realistic expectation that Spurs achieve that, based on their expenditure. How the club would love such drastic overperformance now.

There’s actually a persuasive argument that Spurs’ 2016-17 campaign was one of the great Premier League achievements but people don’t see it like that because there was no silverware. Pochettino was instead subjected to old-fashioned criticisms – and some fair ones – that his team had no “bottle”, that he couldn’t get over the line and that he was too wedded to a tactical idea that meant he made poor decisions in the transfer market.

While there is more merit to the last point, such decisions came in a context where over-performing managers constantly have to make compromises. The modern football economy has ensured the sport is now more financially stratified than ever before, with 40 years of research showing a 90 per cent correlation between wage bill and league position. You generally are what you pay, which is why Guardiola’s Manchester City have subjected English football to its most intense period of dominance.

It's also why Wenger infamously described top four as a trophy, a line that shouldn’t be laughed at so much these days. That's how the club hierarchies see things given the commercial value of the Premier League and Champions League and it's why – lamentably – the domestic cups don’t mean as much to them as they do to the fans. Or the critics.

Pochettino and Arteta have instead been part of the 10 per cent in how they outperformed their wage bills and broadly maximised what they’ve got. The problem is that winning the title requires everything to be perfect for anyone that isn’t the wealthiest and that is almost impossible. You will eventually get things wrong, or at least not 100 per cent right, especially over time.

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Arteta is facing criticism for his lack of trophies at Arsenal (PA Archive)

That’s a reality that now frames Wednesday’s north London derby, which comes at a rare moment when both clubs have undergone disappointing regressions, albeit for different reasons and to different scales.

Spurs have endured this long run of sub-par form and some of that is on Ange Postecoglou. On the whole, though, the club are still suffering from some of the decisions made since reaching the Champions League final in 2018-19. Postecoglou has been tasked with overseeing the club’s belated recommitment to youth.

They do not have a Champions League wage bill. They are almost certain not to have Rashford, either, as they won’t pay most of his wages. Like Arsenal, Spurs have instead had a look at Kolo Muani in order to bring more substance to their attack. Postecoglou has, in the meantime, been mostly attempting to play an intense all-in game when this specific squad might not quite be ready for it and they’re battling injuries. He hasn't compromised much... until now.

The potential criticisms of Arteta’s decisions are much narrower. Last season’s 89 points showed how they are so close to the title but the compromises that were necessary in their summer recruitment haven’t bridged the gap in the short term.

Arteta wanted a forward but he also wanted that specific profile he desires and such a player wasn't immediately gettable. He consequently made a calculation. Arteta decided to commit most of the available budget to Riccardo Calafiori and Mikel Merino, in the medium-term hope that it would give him multiple tactical variations, as he so desperately wants.

Conscious of Profit and Sustainability Rules headroom for bigger future purchases, however, the club made one calculation that has probably cost them now. Because they scored 91 league goals last season, mostly through using five attackers (Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz, Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus), they decided to offload Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah and, on a loan, Fabio Vieira. That has cost them. Raheem Sterling was brought in late on a cut-price agreement on wages, but it is fair to say that just hasn’t worked so far. He isn’t the force he was.

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Bukayo Saka’s injury has exposed Arsenal’s lack of recruitment in that area (Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

The wonder now is whether Arsenal can use the rearranged budget to bring in that forward they need. They so badly need goals, and wins. The last week has probably been Arteta’s worst since the double defeat to Fulham and West Ham in December last season – results that ultimately cost them the title.

You would normally say a fixture against a fragile Tottenham would be perfect, right down to how you can almost see the game panning out. Arsenal can lean on their defence and eventually exploit set-pieces. Except, the recent noises may have changed the tone.

Spurs’ Carabao Cup win over Liverpool emphasised a recent switch from Postecoglou, which is also a response to injuries. His team have been more restrained and canny. The composure of a mere teenager like Archie Gray has been crucial to this. Spurs have been giving up much less space, and it could mean that one of the Premier League’s highest-scoring fixtures actually features few goals.

Postecoglou could do with that. Arteta could do with a release. Both have significant injury problems. Both, consequently, have heard a lot about compromises.