Tottenham blew their chance to rule north London - and Arsenal might not give them another

Before Arsene Wenger became known as FIFA's man trying to radicalise the offside law for no good reason, he was a legendary football manager who revolutionised English football. Widely credited for transforming scouting and health among Premier League sides, Wenger's Arsenal won three Premier League titles, becoming the first team since Preston North End in the 19th century to go an entire season unbeaten. That 2003-04 campaign was the second time the Gunners clinched the league at Tottenham's home stadium.

That, however, remains the last time that Arsenal were crowned the kings of England. Wenger, despite offers from the likes of Real Madrid, chose to stay at the club as they navigated eight years of managing debt brought about by their move from Highbury to the £390 million Emirates Stadium. During this time, Arsenal couldn't spend as lavishly as their rivals - with Financial Fair Play rules not coming into effect until 2011 - and they had to sell key players in order to balance the books.

Arsenal ended a nine-year trophy drought in 2014 by clinching the FA Cup, while that summer they seemed to have been freed from financial restrictions that weighed so heavily on Wenger and the club for nearly a decade. Alas, football had changed plenty by that point, and debates over Wenger's long-term future never really ended once they started in around 2013, while the noise only became amplified in the new age of social media.

At the end of 2016-17, for the first time under Wenger's management, Arsenal failed to finish inside the Premier League's top four. He would last only one more season before standing down.

Amid the parliamentary arguments and fan referendums over Wenger down the road, Tottenham were quietly getting their act together again. Mauricio Pochettino was appointed head coach, later upgraded to manager, in 2014 and won over fans with his high-intensity style and likeable demeanour. Where before the likes of popular bosses Martin Jol and Harry Redknapp made fourth place seem like the limit of Spurs' capabilities, Pochettino smashed through that glass ceiling.

Tottenham battled Leicester City for the 2015-16 title, though only ever got to within four points of the fairy-tale Foxes down the stretch of that season. An inexplicable collapse saw Spurs drop to third place on the final day behind Arsenal, reminding everyone that the balance of power hadn't quite shifted in north London just yet.

One season on, it definitely had. In April 2017, for the first time in 22 years, Spurs cancelled the Arsenal tradition of 'St Totteringham's Day' - the date where it becomes mathematically impossible for Tottenham to finish ahead of the Gunners - by beating Wenger's side 2-0 in the last-ever north London derby at the old White Hart Lane.

"Spurs deserved to win, we have to accept that and analyse it. It is very disappointing, but the target at the beginning of the season is not to finish above Spurs, it is to win the league. They deserve it," a crestfallen Wenger said post-match.

Pochettino's men would finish with a club-record 86 points, second to only 93-point champions Chelsea. It showed this Spurs side were not a flash-in-the-pan and were deservedly a member of the Premier League's 'big six'.

Tottenham had their opening to wrestle control of north London away from Arsenal for good. They had one of the world's most promising coaches in Pochettino, who had grown a young core of stars such as Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Son Heung-min and Christian Eriksen, mixed with the experience of Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen, Toby Alderweireld and Mousa Dembele.

Spurs' first XI that had flirted with the title was among the best in Europe, but they still sorely lacked depth. It didn't help that they had to leave White Hart Lane, where they had gone unbeaten for all of 2016-17, to spend a year-and-a-half at Wembley before returning to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Meanwhile, there always seemed to be some sort of civil war within the Arsenal space either side of Wenger's 2018 exit. Was Jack Wilshere better than Aaron Ramsey despite both being consistently injured? Should the team be built around Mesut Ozil or Alexis Sanchez? Why is Shkodran Mustafi still playing? Was Unai Emery the right man to take Wenger's job?

There was a sense of unity at Tottenham that had eroded at Arsenal since their 2004 title win. Everyone at Spurs seemed to be on the same page, until Pochettino in May 2018, for the first time as manager, called on the board to help him in the transfer market. They responded by failing to sign a single new player for the following two transfer windows.

Yet against all odds, Tottenham reached their first Champions League final in 2018-19, escaping a group of death after taking one point from three games, eliminating tournament favourites Manchester City via an infamous VAR call and scoring with effectively the last kick of their semi-final against Ajax. Arsenal had also qualified for the Europa League final, but the mood among their fans didn't improve.

In the three weeks or so leading up to both finals, many Arsenal supporters were uneasy at the prospect of Tottenham winning the Champions League before them. What happened in the Europa League paled in comparison to the thought of Spurs becoming the kings of Europe. It came as a massive relief when Pochettino's side lost 2-0 to Liverpool, softening the blow of the Gunners' own 4-1 defeat to Chelsea.

That was as close and clear an opening Tottenham have ever had to ruling north London on such a seismic scale.

Nearly six months on from the Champions League final, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy took the controversial step of replacing Pochettino with Jose Mourinho, hoping 'the Special One' would take Spurs from nearly-men to winners. Some reports also claimed Levy was wary that Arsenal were lining up Mourinho as a successor to the under-fire Emery, who was sacked a fortnight after Pochettino.

Levy claimed in Spurs' Amazon Prime documentary, 'All or Nothing', that he viewed Mourinho as one of the two best managers in football at that point, even despite his then-recent history of underperforming and being sacked by both Chelsea and Manchester United. Mourinho finished sixth in 2019-20 and was fired days before the 2020-21 Carabao Cup final against Manchester City, much to the confusion of players even if he was unpopular among fans.

Arsenal went down a different route. Where Tottenham looked to the short term, the Gunners stripped everything back and planned for the future. Former captain Mikel Arteta, who was assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City and came close to succeeding Wenger in 2018, was appointed head coach. Like Pochettino, he would impress the board enough to be handed the title of manager later down the line.

There were several other behind-the-scenes changes at the Emirates Stadium, with Edu Gaspar - part of the 2003-04 'Invincibles' - promoted from technical director to sporting director, while Raul Sanllehi left to be replaced by Vinai Venkatesham as CEO.

Arteta's Arsenal, led by the heroics of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, won the 2019-20 FA Cup, though recorded back-to-back eighth-place finishes in the Premier League - their lowest since the pre-Wenger days. Nevertheless, there was an acceptance the rebuild would take a couple more years to bear further fruit.

The 2021-22 campaign brought back the halcyon days of a straight shootout between the north London rivals to finish fourth, again built on completely different philosophies. Arsenal rode out some poor early-season form and stood by Arteta, who was relying on a new generation of stars such as Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli to turn their fortunes around. Spurs, on the other hand, sacked new head coach Nuno Espirito Santo 10 games into his tenure, bringing in ex-Chelsea boss Antonio Conte.

Heading into the final three months of that season, it became clear Spurs and Arsenal were the only serious contenders for the final Champions League spot. Adding extra spice to the mix was a rearranged derby for the penultimate week of the campaign, with the original fixture postponed in controversial circumstances as Arsenal bemoaned they didn't have enough available players. Tottenham went into that game knowing a loss would have led to Arsenal clinching fourth, while they still needed the Gunners to drop points if they were to leapfrog them anyways.

Conte's men won 3-0, while Arteta's young side lost at Newcastle days later to allow Spurs to climb back above them into the top four. So much of the discourse in the closing weeks of that season was centred on what Champions League qualification would do for their respective and intertwined futures; Spurs were tipped to become title contenders again having done enough to keep Conte, Kane and Son around, while Arsenal were still a couple of years from such status. We couldn't have been more wrong.

Failure to secure Champions League qualification mattered little to Arsenal's summer 2022 plans, as they purchased Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko from Manchester City while welcoming back William Saliba from a fruitful loan spell at Marseille. Tottenham's marquee signings were Richarlison, Yves Bissouma, Clement Lenglet on loan and the ageing Ivan Perisic.

Conte, who has notably never been able to balance European football with domestic action, blew his lid during an extraordinary press conference in March 2023 and was sacked soon after, with the club and head coach never quite aligned on their vision. At the time, Spurs were fifth, while Arsenal were several points clear at the top of the table and were being rewarded for their patience in a long-term plan. They are yet to break their title duck, but three successive second-placed finishes isn't to be sniffed at unless you're Manchester City or Liverpool, and especially not if you're Tottenham.

This renaissance opened up new opportunities in the market for Arsenal, who fought off City to sign Declan Rice for £105 million in 2023 off the back of one title challenge, a show of intent Spurs never showed when they were in a similar position.

There has been a willingness at Tottenham to give their head coaches time, but they have committed very little to actually supporting them by improving the playing squad. As Ange Postecoglou attested on Sky Bet's Stick To Football podcast last week, his reward for guiding Spurs to fifth place after selling all-time leading scorer Kane was the signing of one Premier League-proven player (Dominic Solanke) and three teenagers.

The Australian had to win the Europa League last season by tanking the domestic campaign because Spurs simply didn't have the strength in depth - remember, an issue since the Pochettino era - to compete on multiple fronts. Thomas Frank deserved to be sacked earlier this month, but he too was let down by a hierarchy now led by ex-Arsenal chief Venkatesham, who left the Emirates just before they emerged as a powerhouse again.

There's no doubt Tottenham's current malaise has been compounded by Arsenal's relative success in recent years. Gunners supporters are beginning to realise that, like their Spurs counterparts of the Pochettino days, the teams you love the most aren't necessarily the ones who actually win trophies.

But that bonus is surely only around the corner for Arsenal. When they do win a major trophy and hold that parade, the capital may have to go into a form of lockdown. After all, they are the biggest club in London and the fruits of their labour will eventually prove that.

For example, a reported 70,000 people lined the streets for Chelsea's last title parade in 2015. Tottenham welcomed an estimated 150,000 for theirs last summer after winning the Europa League. Arsenal fans had to hear it all summer about the supposed 'champions of Europe', but their day in the sun is coming and their rivals from all over the country are going to know about it.

The north London derby is one of the greatest fixtures in the English football calendar, but there is a real danger that it won't be played next season.

Depending on results elsewhere, Spurs could enter the derby in 17th and only two points above the relegation zone. They are still without a win in domestic action in 2026 and have called upon Igor Tudor to rescue them from the drop ahead of a potential reunion with Pochettino in the summer. Fans who were around when Tottenham were last dumped out of the top-flight in 1976-77 claim there are stark similarities with this season and the threat of playing Championship football next year is far from alarmism.

Arsenal, meanwhile, have the chance to record a fourth-successive win at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. For comparison, Spurs have only ever won twice at the Emirates. The Gunners are also favourites to win all four competitions they remain in this season, meaning the paths of these two clubs couldn't be any further apart than they are right now.

North London will be red for the considerable future regardless of Sunday's result, and it's incomprehensible how Tottenham managed to not only let their advantage in this arms race slip, but be completely reversed - and beyond.