Arsenal and Spurs have no idea what their identity is that could blow the Premier League ‘big six’ wide open

Unai Emery is yet to prove he is the right fit at the Emirates while Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham are in a period of restarting that could open the door for a team such as Leicester City

Miguel Delaney
Chief Football Writer
Monday 02 September 2019 07:34 BST
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Unai Emery praises Arsenal for comeback against Tottenham

After sharing a point, both Mauricio Pochettino and Unai Emery also shared a point of view.

“I am positive,” the Tottenham Hotspur manager declared.

“I am going to be positive,” the Arsenal manager had already said.

The nature of such declarations of course inherently implies there were elements to be negative about, which was absolutely the case.

As much as Arsenal claimed a point where a derby defeat once looked certain, and as much as Spurs avoided a total collapse when that at one stage looked inevitable, there were was also the niggle that both badly squandered a big chance for a necessary big win.

On the whole, these were uneven performances, which itself is a natural consequence of the fact these are very uneven teams. It is not just that they are far from complete, but that they don’t have anything like a complete idea of themselves.

With Arsenal, this is reflected in how Emery seems to keep picking the wrong starting line-up for these games, dropping Alexandre Lacazette at Liverpool and Dani Ceballos here. The Spaniard does rectify them, sure, but there is very much a sense of learning as they go.

With Spurs, this is reflected in how they seem to have stopped doing some of the things that at one point - around 2016 and 2017 - possibly made them the best team in the country. They don’t press anywhere near as relentlessly as they used to, they don’t defend anywhere near as well as they used to, and they don’t play as well as they used to.

And, just as with Emery, there is a sense Pochettino doesn’t know his best team either.

This is partly because the Argentine is on the other side of a cycle to the Arsenal boss. Whereas Emery is building a team, Pochettino is trying to rebuild one.

They are both far further along in their processes than Chelsea and Manchester United, but it does mean all four of these sides share an issue that means they may not actually share the top six positions this season.

They remain members of the “big six”, because they are by far the wealthiest clubs in the country, but - for different reasons - none of these four are coming close to maximising their money at the moment.

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It is why the pre-season view that this could finally be a chance for someone else to break the European places has only been reinforced over the first month of the campaign.

The major issue is that, after a long spell when all six of the sides just won a critical mass of matches against the other 14 by pure conditioning of their greater resources, they are no longer such certainties.

You could say an element of complacency has set in in that regard, and these four have questionable planning decisions in many cases. Whatever the actual truth of that, many figures at the top end of the game say that a club like Leicester City have a better idea about what they want to be than any of these.

They have a clear plan, and are very decisively acting on it.

That still doesn’t feel the case with Arsenal because it still doesn’t feel that Emery is absolutely the right man. The jury is still out on him, which his contract situation - where they can decide whether to extend it at the end of the season - fully reflects.

Mauricio Pochettino insists he will not quit Spurs if they lose the north London derby against Arsenal

That could be said even more strongly about Frank Lampard and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Chelsea are admittedly and openly in a period of transition for a variety of reasons, like that transfer ban. United’s own transfer business meanwhile emphasises they do not really know what they want to transition to, and there is still considerable doubt over whether Solskjaer is the right man.

They really should have gone for broke for Pochettino over the summer, and he is similarly a manager that both Chelsea and Arsenal have greatly envied over the past few years.

That is one huge advantage Spurs have in all this, and why they really should be the third best team in the country by some distance.

They’re just not showing it right now, or much of what they want to be themselves.

That, however, may also represent one source of encouragement for them. There is a lot of talk that the squad is just feeling the immediate effects of Pochettino’s fitness schedule that will see the full benefits later on.

There is also the fact that, whatever about Spurs’ best idea of a team, this certainly isn’t yet their best midfield. Tanguy N’Dombele and Giovanni Lo Celso are two signings they have specifically been crying out for, and it was notable that Spurs' game immediately settled when the Argentine was brought on against Arsenal.

That is undeniably a positive.

Spurs should fix themselves. As to everything else, and whether the top six will be as fixed as it has been since 2016, that is likely to be as uneven a process as this match.

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