With today’s Carling Cup Semi-Final, Second Leg between Arsenal and Tottenham fast approaching, I am surprised at how relatively little hype there has been thus far. But with Gunners’ manager Arsene Wenger hinting that there may be a greater presence of ‘first-teamers’ here than in the dismal first leg at Ashburton Grove, are the Arsenal faithful potentially on a hiding to nothing? In last season’s semi-final clash, and indeed in the first leg a few weeks back, the Tottenham supporters complained that they ‘couldn’t win’ no matter what happened – if Arsenal won, it was yet another defeat of the old enemy, if Spurs took the spoils, they had only beaten Arsenal’s ‘kids’. But if, as expected, Arsenal’s current ‘first choice’ centre-back pairing of Gallas and Swiss Phil are backed up by the likes of Eduardo and Rosicky, I have no doubt that there will be more than a few Spurs fans hollering ‘you cheated’, ‘it wasn’t fair’, or ‘you were supposed to play your kids’ if Arsenal reach the final again.
Such is the gulf between these two clubs now, that Tottenham are almost looking for a leg-up from Arsenal to ease their passage into a first major final in years…