Published: 5 September, 2013

ARSENAL
THAT curious fellow Garth Crooks, who always looks so bloody sincere, as if he’s about to tell us something really important for humanity rather than a naff thought about football, went typically Alan Partridgey.

Before the north London derby, he told us: “Spurs have sold Elvis – and bought The Beatles.”

This was so superbly absurd there should be a plaque in London somewhere nailing the words to a public wall:

Spurs have bought The Beatles.

Tottenham, of course, followed that up by playing like a team of Ringos against Arsenal, despite their £100million spent.

Their new signings may be very good footballers – Capoue and Soldado for sure – but for a wonderful 90+5 minutes on Sunday it was like they had signed, not The Beatles, but Wings.

Or Del Amitri.

Or Menswear.

Or a whole team of whining Ed Sheerans. Or any other drear-hole music act. But certainly not The Beatles.

All that money, all those smug grins, a summer of Spurs braggadocio – and they still needed Villas-Boas racing from the sidelines in injury time to tell Kyle Walker to “throw it in there”.

The sequence of events since the last issue of this newspaper really has been too much: First Spurs say a shed load of things about how wonderfully brilliant they are.

Then Arsenal beat them, again.

Then Gareth Bale leaves, despite all those board assurances at the start of the summer that he wouldn’t.

Then Arsenal sign Ozil. Then it turns out Spurs tried to stop Arsenal signing Ozil.

I mean, really? Even in north London’s football landscape, steady in its natural order for 50 years or so, this really has been an extraordinary few days. A familarly happy ending, nevertheless, to a confusing summer.
RICHARD OSLEY

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
So they say the lure of Real Madrid is just far too good an offer to turn down, eh?

Well, Mr Bale, I’d like to offer some thoughts on why staying put in north London could’ve been the better move after all…

Football: No more free kicks. Ronaldo likes to do that. And no more roaming about up front while the others do the donkey work. You are going to have play left back, son.

Food: Madrid’s celebrated bar Torre del Oro has gory bull fighting memorabilia that will put you off your tapas.

It also employs incomprehensible waiters and, for such a shy lad, ordering anything there is going to be a test of nerves.

As for Tottenham, if you’d checked out Pavros’s Fish Bar on the High Road, which does pre-match cod, chips and a drink for under a fiver, the lure of Spain would’ve weakened.

Weather: ok, so Madrid is further south, but remember what a great summer we have had. Also you’re from Wales, so you have Celtic skin that will burn. Surely you could have just gone away for a fortnight instead?

Housing: Tottenham is an up-and-coming area. Just think what you could have bought in N17, and then watched as the new stadium made the area the new N1… KERCHING!

Schools: Madrid means baby Alba will grow up bilingual.

But hang on a moment, Haringey has one of the most diverse populations in the country. Instead of being a Spanish citizen she could have been a citizen of the world!

Finally, the New Journal is much more forgiving than Marca.
DAN CARRIER