Mania for detail separates Arsenal from Spurs

Set-piece clarity is just part of the package, a symptom of this Arsenal era’s mania for detail.

Tottenham Hotspur's Dominic Solanke with Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta after the Premier League match Pic: John Walton/PA Wire. 

Yes, well, of course that was going to happen. Ange Postecoglou has a particular manner on the touchline, a way of standing in the same spot for long periods of time, fists bunched in his pockets, a little hangdog and sad, like a long-suffering dad at sports day.

As this slow burn north London derby ticked down towards its inevitable endgame, as the sight of Arsenal’s set-piece coach leaping up at the edge of Postecoglou’s eyeline became ever more potent and ominous, there was a sense also of a man being chased down by the fates, like the doomed priest in The Omen, fate foretold by the shadow of the church spire sticking out of his back.