O’Hara is wrong! – Arsenal FAR more attractive to signings that Spurs
Robin Bairner
- 31 Mar 2022 14:28 BST
- 4 min read
The North London rivalry between Arsenal and Tottenham is one that has waged for decades, but while Spurs have enjoyed a few years in the sun, there can be little doubt that the Gunners are emerging once more as the pre-eminent force in this long-running battle.
Sitting fourth in the Premier League, the Gunners look in a strong position to return to the Champions League after a five-year absence. Sure, Antonio Conte’s Spurs are just about clinging onto their hopes but the momentum in this rivalry is one that is with the men in red.
Nevertheless, that did not stop former Tottenham player Jamie O’Hara making an audacious claim that it is Spurs who are still in command.
Related articles
“Say Manchester United sneak into the top-four and Arsenal and Tottenham are going for the same player, where does he go? It’s Tottenham. If it’s Tottenham or Arsenal, you’re going to Tottenham,” he claimed on Talksport.
"If you’re looking at a football club that you’d go to, you’d go to Tottenham. Why would you go to Arsenal? "
O’Hara went on to cite Tottenham’s new stadium as the chief reason for his claim.
Unfortunately for him, players tend to care more about on-field success than the state of the stands. If this were the case, why on earth have Barcelona managed to attract the game’s best players to their ramshackle Camp Nou home year after year?
No, it is success that players want.
Arsenal on top in North London
Arsenal are clearly ahead of Spurs on this score, despite going through a relatively lean period compared to the high standards they set in the 2000s. Tottenham been labelled with the tag of bottlers having gone 14 years without a trophy. Their neighbours have won four FA Cups since then. And let’s not even discuss league titles.
So how about looking to the future?
Although the Gunners were criticised for their lack of progress in the January transfer window, there has been a clarity to what Mikel Arteta has built in recent months. Arsenal have proven critics wrong about their summer transfer campaign, in which they signed bright young players with an eye to the future.
Sure, they are not the finished article, but progress is evident.
Then look over at Tottenham. Harry Kane, their best player and an icon of the club, wanted to leave last summer, freely indicating that he did not feel the club was capable of reaching the heights that he wanted. Miss out on the Champions League again and he will be agitating for a move.
Meanwhile, manager Antonio Conte, who has barely settled in the dugout, is in open warfare with the board over a lack of transfer backing.
Arsenal’s future is one of certainty and optimism, Tottenham’s must be the polar opposite.
So which club, then, do you think a neutral player would join? There’s only one correct answer, and no Jamie O’Hara, it’s not Tottenham.
