Larry Ryan: Arsenal v Tottenham a North London battle for lost souls

After finally landing the top job at Spurs after Daniel Levy asked every other gaffer in the world first, Nuno Espirito Santo has so far left a dangerous vacuum on the narrative-shaping front. Picture: GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images

Like the TARDIS and Fortycoats’ trick shop, the North London derby is dimensionally transcendental — it looks bigger from the inside than the outside.

This weekend’s edition could have been a six-pointer in the race to avoid the European Super League golden wooden spoon. Cruelly denied that glamour, it now sits as a Super Sunday irrelevance, a local squabble after the Lord Mayor’s show on Saturday lunchtime when Chelsea and Manchester City once again wrestle for world domination.

Where once they talked of tipping the balance of power, now the derby measures depth of ennui.

And yet, a lot rests on this game at the Emirates, you suspect, for the two regimes.

When Willian arrived at Arsenal last year, he revealed it was part of Mikel Arteta’s masterplan to win the Champions League during the three years of the Brazilian’s contract. Even if nobody quite believed that one, there was hope Arteta might effect instant, dramatic change based on the pressing triggers he showed Pep or some other technical wizardry.

Now that both player and plan have left town, Pep’s apprentice has pivoted to selling fans a more vague longer-term vision of a better future. Via investment in youth and the setting of less measurable standards around ‘culture’.

That might, notionally, give him more time to build something. But lose this one, and his fragile foundations could well cave in.

Meanwhile, Nuno Espirito Santo hasn’t really set out a stall yet at Tottenham, as if he is waiting to see if there’s anybody really buying.

He’s saddled with a scenario familiar to his neighbours. Budgets limited by a new, overpriced, soulless ‘arena’ — described as a “multi-million-pound food court” by Spurs YouTuber ‘A Footballing Genius’.

“No Jimmy Greaves statue in case it confuses the NFL crowd who come twice a year. Home to a football team that doesn’t win anything. Just hoping Guns N’ Roses start another world tour.”

Like Arsenal’s, a stadium built at just the wrong time — for Roman Abramovich’s arrival, swap Brexit and Covid. Chief difference: Tottenham can’t even hawk the naming rights.

And like Arsenal after the Wenger glory years, Nuno too must contend with hated owners and wantaway stars moping around. The shadow of a great manager taken for granted before being sacked still looms. Chief difference: there were no glory years.

Now it’s a club mired in another existential crisis about The Tottenham Way. Hiring Mourinho should have acted as a circuit breaker for Spurs in that regard. It ought to have excused them from traditional obligations forevermore. If Jose had won a trophy, “to do” might have been enough, without any need for daring.

But Mourinho has become so toxic, his clubs invariably seek to find themselves again once he’s pushed out the door. And sure enough, Daniel Levy vowed to rediscover “key priorities and what’s truly in our DNA”.

One more burden for Nuno to carry, especially as Levy tried every other gaffer in the world first for somebody whose personal brand was more in keeping with that mission.

In Arteta’s favour, Arsenal’s DNA is a more moveable feast. Even if the club can never recapture the highs of Wengerball, there is always the Boring Arsenal eras to fall back on. The late, great Greavsie liked to joke that Don Howe, not known for joviality, always smiled broadly in the Gunners’ pre-season photograph, “because Don knew all the Arsenal players were behind the ball”.

So Arteta will find tolerance if he can extend his new ‘one-nil to the Arsenal’ revolution.

But with neither club likely to trouble the business end of the table, the narratives shaped by the managers will have to carry a heavy load.

Nowadays, there are often two very different versions of a match played, depending on your estimation of the managers’ philosophies.

Perhaps the starkest example of these parallel universes came in Ireland’s recent 1-1 draw with Serbia, which must have been the first match broadcast in mirror image.

The polar reactions of the watching public were perhaps best summarised by George Hamilton and Stephen Kelly in commentary, who witnessed “the most stunning performance” and Brian Kerr in analysis, who saw “a hard watch” where “we got battered”.

Some day, the boffins who came up with expected goals will devise a formula to calculate how gaffers are doing on the rhetoric front.

Convincing Explanations of the ‘Project’ multiplied by Perception of Playing Style as ‘Progressive’ multiplied by Number of Homegrown players multiplied by Hugs with Players at Full-time divided by Manager’s Baggage from Previous Jobs divided by Club’s Historic Notions.

No wonder that Mourinho, even in his pomp, had minions scour press cuttings daily. Even Thomas Tuchel, now on the crest of a wave, must, as the Guardian’s Jonathan Liew pointed out this week, keep on top of the narrative so that Chelsea are seen as a team excellent at defending rather than a defensive team.

The bleak talk among many Spurs fans suggests that Nuno has so far left a dangerous vacuum on the narrative-shaping front.

After just five league games, a poll on whether he should be sacked running on popular Spurs forum A Fighting Cock stands at 50/50.

A Footballing Genius doesn’t like what he’s hearing.

“Look at the man in the press conferences,” he says.

“You couldn’t see anyone more uncomfortable. Didn’t want to be there. Didn’t want to be an ambassador for the brand. He knows he’s got nothing up his sleeve. He doesn’t have a plan. He sounds broken to me.”

And nowadays, if you don’t like the gaffer’s philosophy, the boffins will give you a stat to back up any misgivings. Spurs might have nine points, three more than Arsenal, but they are 20th in the ‘progressive carries distance’ table. And rock bottom also for ‘successful pressures’.

“Let’s not be hysterical,” says A Footballing Genius, “but this is relegation form”.

And yet, a win on Sunday, especially in a full stadium, would energise either club’s rebuilding effort, as well as restore a little soul. ‘Local Bragging Rights’ is another key metric for gaffers not in the running for big prizes.

It might even embolden Nuno to set out his grand vision.

Though all involved, like Stephen Kenny and many Ireland gaffers before him, would probably snap your hands off now for a 1-1 draw.