The Guardian

It was, as everybody pointed out, inevitable that the north London derby would be decided by a set-play, Gabriel heading the only goal in the second half as Tottenham in general, and Cristian Romero in particular, switched off. It was a win that kept Arsenal within touching distance of Manchester City – and that it’s not absurd to think in such terms even at this early stage of the season suggests just how City’s relentless excellence has affected the perspective – but it also raised further doubts about Ange Postecoglou.

The heady start to last season, in which Spurs took 26 points from their first 10 games under the Australian, feels a long time ago. It was inevitable there would be some sort of regression to the mean but 44 points from their subsequent 32 games is a poor enough record to raise concerns. Extrapolate that over a season and you get 52, which is what West Ham got last season in finishing ninth. For Tottenham, with their expenditure and their stadium, that would be far from acceptable. Cherrypicking isolated parts of a season is never entirely fair, but 32 games is a hefty sample size.

“For some reason people think I don’t care about set pieces and it’s a narrative that you can keep going on for ages and ages,” Postecoglou said on Sunday. “I understand that. We work on them all the time like we do for every other team. You know that they’re a threat, as I said, for the most part, we handled them really well today, but we switched off for one and we paid a price and you learn from that and you move on.”

There was an obvious grumpiness there, which is perhaps only to be expected, but the “for some reason” seemed needlessly passive aggressive. The reason is that Postecoglou dug himself a hole last season, saying of working specifically on set-pieces, “I’m just not interested in it. I never have been.” He did clarify that to explain that, on a philosophical level, he prefers to see the game holistically rather than hiving off one aspect to a specialist set-piece coach, as Arsenal have done with Nicolas Jover.

“It’s something that we work on along with everything in our game,” he said in May. “There are far more important things that we need to concentrate on at the moment in terms of the team we’re building.” Assistant coach Nick Montgomery was brought in during the summer and while he is not a specific set-piece coach, he does appear to have responsibility for them. But then if Tottenham let teams crowd Guglielmo Vicario as Arsenal did, and if Romero is so easily brushed aside by opponents, the problem soon becomes less abut structures than about individuals.

Which may be true, but as a proportion of total goals conceded only Nottingham Forest let in more from set-pieces than Tottenham last season – and the Premier League is ruthless; no weakness goes unexploited. Gabriel’s goal was the first that Spurs have conceded from a set-play so far this campaign, but another pattern, just as damaging, is emerging. In all four games so far this season, they have had at least 60% possession, yet they have won only one of them. In all four they have been ostensibly the better team – although Newcastle did ultimately register the better xG – but they have not created the chances they probably should have, have not, other than against Everton, taken their chances, and then have had their soft underbelly exposed.

Postecoglou sides tend to be at their best in his second season in charge: he himself made reference to that on Sunday, correcting a journalist who had said Postecoglou “normally” wins a trophy in his second season to insist he “always” does – and it did happen with South Melbourne, Brisbane Roar, Yokohama F Marinos and Celtic; at the last three of those that trophy was the league. Even if City are handed an enormous points deduction, it seems hard to imagine that happening this season.

Yet what must be frustrating for Postecoglou is that his side don’t seem that far off. It sounds vaguely ludicrous to say of a team on four points but it really wouldn’t have taken too much to go differently for them to have won four out of four at the start of this season. In the expected points world, Tottenham are just one point behind Arsenal. But back in the real, actual world they’re already six points behind their rivals and four points off the Champions League spots. The basic processes seem there: they just need a little more ruthlessness, a little less carelessness, a little more confidence and decisiveness. The problem is that Tottenham, of all clubs, have heard this before: that is the very essence of Spursiness.

At the beginning of last season, it seemed as though Postecoglou’s uncomplicated gruffness might be just the thing to cut through the years of underachievement. The problem now is that, as manifested in the problem of set-piece defending, it may have become a contributory factor.

Mikel Arteta paid tribute to ­Arsenal’s set-piece coach, Nicolas Jover, for injecting his players with belief after their narrow win in the north London derby kept up the pressure on the Premier League leaders Manchester City.

Gabriel Magalhães’s second-half header from a Bukayo Saka corner was enough to give Arsenal a third successive ­victory at their arch-rivals for the first time since the 1980s as Arteta’s side overcame the absences of the suspended Declan Rice and injured captain Martin Ødegaard in midfield. It was the 17th goal they have scored from a corner since the start of last season and 42nd from a set piece since Jover was recruited from City in 2021.

The Frenchman led the wild cele­brations with Arteta in the dugout, and asked whether he is the best in his field, the Arsenal manager said: “In his field, in other fields and as a person. And the relationship that we have – that’s why I made the decision to bring him to City when I was there and then to Arsenal.

“Him and the rest of the staff have injected the belief to the players that there are many ways to win football matches. This is a really powerful one and he has given us a lot. So a big ­compliment to all of them.”

Tottenham found themselves 3-0 down at half‑time in the corre­sponding ­fixture in April after conceding two goals from set pieces. Ange ­Postecoglou insisted last season that “there are far more important things that we need to concentrate on” but he has since recruited the former Hibernian mana­ger Nick Montgomery to take charge of that area of the team.

Asked if they had spent more time working on set pieces during the week to counter Arsenal’s threat, Postecoglou said: “For some reason people think I don’t care about set pieces. It’s a narrative that you can keep going for ages and ages. I understand that. We work on them all the time but we paid the price today. It’s my burden to carry and I’m happy to do that. For us the way forward is to try and turn the football we are ­playing into something meaningful.”

The victory means that Arsenal head into the showdown at the Etihad Stadium next weekend trailing the champions by two points. They must first travel to Italy to begin their Champions League campaign against Atalanta on Thursday. Arteta revealed he is waiting for news on Ødegaard’s ankle injury and on Saka, who was replaced late on here after sustaining an injury.

“We have won three years in a row here. That’s a big thing,” the Spaniard said. “We have a big week coming up and that is going to give us a lot of motivation, energy and belief.”

Arsenal beat Tottenham 1-0 in the north London derby after a tight and heated game that saw seven yellow cards awarded in the first half. Arsenal's Gabriel Magalhães scored the winner with a header in the 64th minute to grab the Gunners their third win in a row at their arch-rivals' stadium. Arsenal had a number of players missing and their manager, Mikel Arteta, said: 'We had to adapt the plan a little bit because of the players that we had available. And I love it because since the day that we have started to get bad news, the team got hungrier and hungrier to play the game. And that's a big compliment to everybody at the club.' Tottenham's manager, Ange Postecoglou, lamented his side's loss, saying they 'wasted some of our good play … we just haven't really had that sort of conviction in the front third to take advantage.'

Gabriel’s towering header secures derby win for depleted Arsenal at Tottenham

Set-piece goal part of mania for detail that separates Arsenal from Spurs

‘Best in his field’: Arteta lauds Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover for set-piece dominance

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.

Let’s face it, this is how these things work. If you say you’re not interested in set pieces after losing one north London derby on set‑piece goals, and not interested because you just want to play a more expansive holistic game, football logic states very clearly that you will definitely lose the next one that way, too. And that you will do so after playing really quite well, with some nice holistic‑process stuff chucked in.

And so it came to pass here. In part because it was always going to, but mainly because Arsenal made it happen. It is a good cinematic detail that Mikel Arteta’s team won this game thanks to a single clean header from a corner. But zoom out a little and set-piece clarity is just part of the package, a symptom of this Arsenal era’s mania for detail.

This is a minutely planned sporting entity from pressing to passing combinations. So, yes, of course that includes corners, headers and getting in the way artfully. You don’t challenge for a league this way. But it certainly helps.

The decisive moment arrived on 64 minutes. It was a classic one‑two. As Bukayo Saka took a right-wing corner there was a distracting surge past the front post. The ball went to the back, where Gabriel Magalhães produced a wonderful wrench of the neck to thump his header into the back of the net.

It is an interesting part of the dynamic that for an hour it had been tempting to wonder if this was the kind of afternoon where Arsenal would miss having a sniper, a finisher, a one-shot killer. It was a scruffy game, not so much a boxing match as the football equivalent of the kind of brawl inside a Wetherspoons that ends on YouTube, all haymakers by the pool table and wild flying air-kicks.

Have there ever been so many bookings for pulling your man back in the centre circle? This was a free for all of pulling-back, no quarter asked, none given in the pulling‑back-in-the-centre-circle stakes.

It always seemed to be narrowing towards a moment. And as the goal went in the realisation arrived with it that Arsenal do have a killer in their ranks.

His name is Nicolas Jover, the set-piece specialist, who was immediately engulfed by a group coach hug, and who was still up on his feet looking a bit wild and emotional as the game restarted. You can add Gabriel to that too, whose goal here was the fifth time he has scored the winner for Arsenal.

It should be said that Postecoglou isn’t some kind of luddite anti-set piece fanatic. Spurs do have a new coach who takes care of this side of things. But Arsenal are just better at it. There were four Spurs set-piece deliveries into the box in the opening 10 minutes here, all of them won by Arsenal players quite comfortably.

Jover has been called a revolutionary, a game‑changer, a visionary. He certainly must have incredible thighs. His entire afternoon is basically a series of squats and leaps and sprints, as set pieces come and go. It is a slightly weird new dynamic all round. Will the set-piece coaches ever stop leaping up? Why don’t goalkeeping coaches leap up whenever there’s a shot or a penalty kick? Why don’t the analytic guys leap and stare intently from the touchline during each period of slow possession?

But then the current focus is also a fad to some degree, the Premier League and its broadcasters mining fresh meat, fresh content. Perhaps before long we can look forward to a set‑piece coach golden age, from the great Scottish mining stock set-piece coaches, a set-piece Clough a set-piece Ferguson, our first set-piece coach Mourinho, the smouldering bad boy?

The reality, of course, is that Arsenal won this game in many other ways, all of them connected to the same mania for detail and planning. The midfield was missing not just Declan Rice but Martin Ødegaard, but made up for it in energy and scuffle.

Jurriën Timber and Gabriel Martinelli looked like a classy little two-hander on the left at times. Leandro Trossard worked really hard in the centre, even managing to tear his shirt theatrically, opening up a door in his chest, C-3PO-style. Even the 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri came on and battled impressively. By the end the details were enough. Including, of course the obvious one.

Injustice. A costly suspension. Injuries. Erling Haaland. The schedule. Arsenal had watched the obstacles line up in front of them and they knew what everybody was ­thinking: champion teams-in-the-making find a way to cope. To Mikel Arteta’s delight, Arsenal coped.

After the dropped points against Brighton, the draw shaped and scarred by Declan Rice’s contro­versial red card and the loss of ­Martin ­Ødegaard to injury on ­Norway duty, it was a day for a makeshift lineup to dig deep, for the collective resolve to shine through.

It was epitomised by the toughness of the centre-halves, Gabriel ­Magalhães and William Saliba; they led an intimidating last line, which featured a standout performance from Jurrien Timber at left‑back. Arsenal routinely got men around the ball, suffocating a Tottenham team that began brightly but ran into walls.

Manchester City had won again on Saturday, Haaland scoring the goals against Brentford, but how Arsenal found a response, the celebrations long and loud at full-time after a third succes­sive win in the backyard of their ­fiercest rivals.

The decisive moment had ­familiar trimmings. Two of ­Arsenal’s goals in the 3-2 win here last season came from corners; part of a Premier League‑high 22 from setpieces. So when Bukayo Saka sent over a second-half corner, there was a sickening sense of deja vu for Tottenham.

Guglielmo Vicario was boxed in, ­Arsenal’s physicality pronounced yet again and there was Gabriel to power home the header. The victory was the perfect start to a difficult week for Arsenal. After a Champions League trip to Atalanta on Thursday, they travel to City on Sunday.

For Spurs, there was only frustra­tion. Ange Postecoglou is not a man for compromise. Everybody knew how the manager would try to play and his starting XI reinforced the message, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski in attacking midfield roles, looking to push behind the front three.

His team simply could not make it happen; they grew increasingly perplexed at how to outmanoeuvre Arsenal’s defensive titans. If there was a sere­nade for Postecoglou from the Spurs ­support in the early running, there were some boos for him and the team upon the final whistle. Then again, there always are after a bad result. The Carabao Cup trip to Coventry on Wednesday has assumed greater significance.

With no Rice and no Ødegaard, Arteta paired Jorginho with Thomas Partey in midfield and asked Kai Havertz and Leandro Trossard to work as the central forwards in front of them. It was Jorginho’s first action of the season and only the second time he had started a game with Partey. On both of the previous occasions, Partey had played at right-back.

Arsenal had to learn on the hoof and Spurs were in the mood to ask questions of them at the outset. The first half flew by, the tempo high, some of the transitions dizzying. The aggro was a big part of it, too. Naturally.

Spurs raged when Timber clattered into Pedro Porro; he looked to have got his boot to the top of the ball before rolling into the Spurs full‑back and there was a confrontation between Timber and a raging Vicario, which led to a melee. Timber was booked for the tackle, which was about right. There was not enough in it for a red card.

Vicario was booked for his reaction; one of five Spurs cautions in the first-half. Choice cuts included Destiny Udogie on Saka and Micky van de Ven on Trossard.

Spurs almost contrived the early breakthrough. Kulusevski shot at David Raya while he almost profited after whipping in an inswinging cross from the right, which went through a crowd. Raya had to have seen it late, which made the tip away at full stretch more impressive. There was irritation for Spurs when they forced Ben White into a loose pass and Dominic Solanke had a clear shooting chance. He did not unload quickly enough and Saliba was able to block.

Back came Arsenal. Arteta was unhappy when Gabriel Martinelli curled weakly at Vicario after being sent clear up the inside left by ­Trossard while moments earlier, the Spurs goalkeeper had saved smartly from a towering Havertz header.

Amid all of the physical stuff ­leading up half-time, there were further flickers of actual football. Maddison crossed deep for Solanke, who looped a header just past the far post. Kulusevski won the ball in a crowd and fed Brennan Johnson, who lashed high.

Could we have a moment of ­quality amid the maelstrom? Solanke was crowded out at the start of the ­second half as he attacked a header; Van de Ven flashed another at Raya from the ensuing corner. It was from one at the other end that Arsenal edged ahead. Of course it was.

Arsenal won it after a slick counter, ignited by Trossard’s volley and featuring good holdup play by Havertz and a Saka shot that was blocked. When Saka bent in the kick, it was impossible to ignore the mass of ­bodies that engulfed Vicario. He could not get out to the ball, which Saka had dropped into the ideal area. Gabriel applied a bit of pressure into Cristian Romero’s back and, when he rose, the conversion was straightforward.

What did Spurs have left? Very little. Maddison drew howls when he tried to usher in Solanke rather than shoot and he was replaced by Timo Werner shortly afterwards, ­Postecoglou moving Son into a more central role. The die had been cast. Arsenal would not be breached.

This is an excellent point from David Howell

“The other thing, with this being only September, is that we don’t know yet whether this title race is a normal one, or one where lawyers and assorted other professional interpreters of accountancy Numberwang will forcibly remove Manchester City from the equation.

“All the other teams are jostling for position in a peloton that may or may not have a sky blue breakaway to chase down. This is Schrödinger’s Table until that particular case is closed; there is indeed a huge day in the title race this week, but it’s not today. It’s tomorrow.”

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Team news: Van de Ven and Solanke return, Trossard starts

Great news for Spurs: Micky van de Ven and Dominic Solanke are fit to start. Big Ange has picked an extremely attacking team, with Rodrigo Bentancur playing Colin Calderwood in an Ossie Ardiles tribute XI. Brennan Johnson also comes back into the side. The four players who miss out are Radu Dragusin, Wilson Odobert, Yves Bissouma and Pape Sarr.

Jorginho replaces the suspended Declan Rice and will captain Arsenal in the absence of Martin Odegaard. Gabriel Martinelli replaces him, which gives Mikel Arteta a few options. Trossard or Havertz could drop into midfield, or Arsenal could play with a box. Raheem Sterling is among the substitutes.

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Updated at 14.04 CEST

Preamble

The calendar never lies, and today it says 15 September. That’s right, September. Not May, April or even December. You wouldn’t know it from some of the previews of today’s North London derby, which have stopped just short of opining that world peace depends on Team X getting a result.

All North London derbies matter, and they’re usually great fun fun for the neutral. And both teams do need a result for different reasons. But it’s still September and it’s probably more conducive to world sanity if we try to remember that.

So, why it matters. Spurs need to improve their performances:points ratio, having taken only 10 from their last 10 league games, and Arsenal could be without their entire first-choice midfield for the first time in years. That’s not ideal when you are a) playing Tottenham and b) watching Erling Haaland gambol towards the horizon. If, say, Arsenal draw today and lose at the Etihad next Sunday, they will already be eight points behind Manchester City.

Then again, if they win them both they’ll be a point above City and at least six clear of Spurs. And whatever happens, there will still be 32 league games remaining. It’s September, stupid.

Kick off 2pm.

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Pedro Porro is searching for the right words in Spanish, the ones that best convey what has driven him and, as so often, he leans on the wisdom of his grandfather, Antonio, the biggest influence on his career. “He always had three sayings,” the Tottenham full-back says during a break in preparations for Sunday’s home north London derby. “Vista larga. Paso corto. Mala leche.”

The first means “long view” or “big picture”, the second “short steps” and they are fairly self-explanatory in terms of what is needed on a life journey. The third is more problematic and has everyone reaching for Google to translate, Porro included. Yet “bad milk” is open to various interpretations.

According to the dictionary, it can mean bad mood or tendency to moodiness; also spite and meanness. Apparently, it is often used to reflect the belief that bad character could be passed down to a baby through a mother’s milk.

It does not scan entirely. “Fury,” Porro offers, looking up from his phone, and this is more like it. An edge, a hardness, even a nastiness that is needed to thrive. Porro is reminded of something he told the Guardian’s Sid Lowe in March 2023 when it was tough for him at Spurs after his mid-season move from Sporting Lisbon: “Let me loose in a prison and I’ll end up owning the place.”

Porro smiles because it was another phrase that Antonio taught him. And then he is off, opening up, sharing so much. Mala leche. Top dog in prison. It is more a state of mind conditioned by his childhood, one he will carry with him into the heat of the derby.

“Since I was small, I have had to fight for everything,” Porro says. “You had to be tough in my house. Often there wasn’t any food. I know others have that situation, too, but that is how it was. That is why I have had to be tough. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, this spirit. It’s a winning spirit, as well. It can be positive within the game. It’s been part of me since I started. If you want to reach the absolute top level, you have to be strong mentally.

“This toughness is something that is going to hold me in good stead against Arsenal. I just try to be focused 100% for every match I play. That is something I realised when I arrived here. You have to be 100% prepared every time you pull on the shirt of this team. It’s going to be a tight match, a beautiful match. I just hope it goes well for us.”

Porro, who turned 25 on Friday, grew up in the small town of Don Benito in Spain’s landlocked Extremadura province, in the west of the country. He always had a ball at his feet, the typical street footballer, and it was Antonio to whom he owes his career. He was also close to his maternal grandmother, Maria del Carmen, who died in 2022.

“I lived with my grandparents because my parents were always working,” Porro says. “They had to work really hard to put something on the table for me. It was my grandfather who wanted me to get into football; in reality, he was my father in football, the one who took me to all the different places to play. He still calls me. He has said that he can die easy and peacefully knowing he has seen his boy reach the top of the game.”

Porro’s path has been far from straightforward. It was a difficult time when he left home at 14 for a youth contract with Rayo Vallecano in Madrid. He impressed during his first full professional season at Girona in 2018-19 and yet the club were relegated from La Liga. Then there was the move to Manchester City in the summer of 2019 and the immediate loan to Real Valladolid. He was there and not there at City; a weird feeling. Valladolid did not work out.

But everything changed for him at Sporting, where he went on an initial loan from City in the summer of 2020, and one way of charting his story there is through “the Legend of the Shorts”. Porro smiles even more as he remembers it, how he turned up for his presentation in a pair of heavily ripped denim shorts that, for reasons unknown, he did not change out of. Rocking the green-and-white Sporting shirt with the shorts was a strong look and there were raised eyebrows, mockery.

Then came the cult hero bit. After Porro settled and started to show his best form, there were memes of him in the shorts with pictures of various attackers in the pockets. The shorts even featured in Porro’s tearful farewell video. He puts them on a hanger in his locker, packs his bag, turns and leaves, the final image being of Sporting’s badge and the shorts. “Obrigado, Porrito,” is the closing message: “Thank you.”

“The transfer to Sporting was going through, I was on the beach and I didn’t have anything to wear … I was just wearing the shorts,” Porro says. “When I left, they sort of passed into history. It’s an anecdote that keeps on running and I think it shows my personality, as well. I’m happy to laugh at myself.”

Porro’s difficulties in his first few months at Spurs were well documented but the club’s supporters are not talking about them now; not after how he grew last season. It was the latest example of the steeliness of his resolve, not to mention his swashbuckling talent.

What the fans want to know is why Porro was overlooked by Spain for Euro 2024; the manager, Luis de la Fuente, had Dani Carvajal at right-back with Jesús Navas in reserve. Porro had won his third cap in March – 12 months on from his second, which was two years on from his first. De la Fuente did not pick him again in the international window just gone.

Now for the derby, which offers Spurs the opportunity of revenge against Arsenal for last season. “Set pieces,” Porro says, unprompted, a nod to how his team conceded twice on corners in the first half. Spurs were 3-0 down at the interval; they ended up losing 3-2.

The main pre-match line takes in the absences of Declan Rice and probably Martin Ødegaard for Arsenal. Surely, they raise Spurs’ hopes? Porro does not look at it that way. His focus, as ever, is on what he can do. “We are a different team this year,” he says. “I think you can see that in the first three matches, even if the results in football don’t always go the way they should.

“It’s our second year working together and it’s a matter of becoming more familiar with each other. Confidence and trust comes from that.

“I was at the supermarket in the week and found myself among some Spurs fans, who were all talking to me about the match. That’s a really beautiful thing. You are out and about with your family and you see that support. It’s something that fills you with energy. Come Sunday, we are going to be really prepared for it.”

Stoke Newington on the verge of derby weekend is not a place for the faint of heart. Located right in the centre of the bitter turf war between the ­historic rivals Arsenal and Tottenham, even on a sunny Friday lunchtime its leafy parks and terrace-lined streets drip with menace. Take a wrong turn, or catch the wrong eye, and nobody can really say what will happen next. A King Charles spaniel yowls ferally on the approach to Clissold Park. The blood on the pavement outside the bakery turns out, on closer inspection, to be jam from a doughnut.

Such is the omertà around this 111-year feud, which resumes on Sunday afternoon at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, that local business owners feign impartiality or even ignorance of the forthcoming fixture, presumably wary of reprisals from rival fans. “Is it Spurs v Arsenal this weekend?” says a woman arranging the display of a local flower shop, who gives her name only as Laura. “I’m not much of a football fan.”

Nobody in the local estate agent will claim an interest either, although one guy near the back – whose identity I have protected for his own safety – reckons Arsenal may struggle if they are without Martin Ødegaard.

Undeterred, the Observer has embarked on a mission to discover what makes this derby one of the most ferociously contested grudge matches in the whole of professional sport. For the global television audience of ­millions, this is simply 90 minutes of product, along with all the attendant hype and gossip that accompanies it. But for those involved, it’s far more than that. It’s a way of life.

Which is why this newspaper has decided to take a bold trek out of its comfort zone, into the oft-mythologised but largely uncharted wilderness known as “north London”. Who are these people? What drives and fulfils them? And how has football given back some pride to a region better known for centrist politics and open-water swimming?

Three miles away, in the Coach & Horses pub on Tottenham High Road, the panel above the bar is bedecked in memorabilia, from signed shirts to flags. This is Spurs territory. A sign hooked around the whisky dispenser reads “Home Fans Only”. An Arsenal fan walking into this pub would quite literally be taking their life into their hands. It’s still only noon, but already a couple of hardened regulars have taken their usual seats at the back of the room.

I ask, by way of conversational ice-breaker, whether they are Tottenham fans. “Sunderland,” replies one. “Shamrock Rovers,” says the bloke next to him in a Dublin accent, a wizened and genial old fellow who will later give his occupation as “male model”.

“I’m the only Spurs in here,” calls the landlady, a jolly woman of middle years called Tina. As you can imagine, running a Spurs pub on derby day is not a job for the meek. The Coach & Horses will be packed to overfilling, security hired to keep order, as well as to enforce the rule on no visiting fans.

But what about the rest of the time? What if an Arsenal fan – known pejoratively in these parts as a “Gooner” – were to stray over the threshold? Would they simply be turfed out? Or would a more exemplary punishment be demanded? “Oh, that rule’s just for match days,” Tina explains. “We get Arsenal fans in here all the time. There’s one over there. She’s my daughter.”

She points towards the other end of the bar, where a young woman is chatting on her phone. It turns out that Tina is that rarest of specimens: a Tottenham sleeper cell. Her entire family are Arsenal fans. She even lives in Holloway, in the shadow of the Emirates Stadium. So how did she end up becoming baptised into the church of Tottenham? “Because I’m special,” she says.

As with so many intractable conflicts, nobody quite knows where the battle lines lie. Hornsey and Finsbury Park are definitely Arsenal territory; Stamford Hill and Seven Sisters more Spurs. But even within these broad distinctions there is room for nuance. There are Spurs fans living in Holloway and Arsenal fans living in Walthamstow. Essex and Hertfordshire are contested territory. Rival tribes often live side by side, sharing the same workplaces and schools, even the same bed.

The potential for skirmishes, even full-blown violence, is endless. Like many of the world’s other great derby cities – Glasgow, Rome, Buenos Aires, Belgrade – north London must feel like a tinder box constantly on the verge of ignition.

“That’s religion, though, isn’t it?” posits an Arsenal fan in the Little Wonder cafe just off the Holloway Road. We’ve taken the short trip south, into Arsenal turf, in search of the opposite perspective on this eternal civil war. “This isn’t that. It’s just banter. Bragging rights. I mean, you always get a few idiots causing trouble. But we don’t hate each other.” “I don’t know about that,” his mate responds. “Tottenham fans are just different, aren’t they? Somehow. I can’t really explain it. Maybe it’s moral fibre.”

Perhaps the deadliest flashpoint in the recent history of the Arsenal v Tottenham feud came almost a decade ago, when what should have been a joyous victory parade to mark Arsenal’s FA Cup triumph ended in ugly scenes. An Arsenal player called Jack Wilshere addressed the crowd outside the Emirates and started a familiar anti-Tottenham chant. “What do we think of Tottenham?” he asked. “Shit!” came the response. “What do we think of shit?” he continued. “Tottenham!” “Thank you!” he responded.

In the pandemonium that followed, the club’s in-house TV channel was forced to cut its live feed of the parade. Wilshere was the subject of an internal disciplinary process and would leave the club barely a year later.

Mark Doidge is a sociologist at Loughborough University and an expert in the culture of football fandom. “Football is a great way to understand how social groups form,” he says. “Who we are is partly about what we do in common with ­others like us. But it is also about who we are not. So rivalry is about bragging rights, symbolic superiority over ­others to reinforce who we are.”

Why, then, do some rivalries inspire fear and carnage, while others feel so performative, almost forced, based exclusively in banter and irony? “It’s partly tied to cultures of masculinity and hooliganism,” Dr Doidge says. “Basically, the fans themselves bring emotion and intensity to the spectacle.

“The more they care – the more their identity is wrapped up with the club in what psychologists call ‘fused identity’ – the more likely the rivalry will lead to off-the-pitch events. Maybe the context of north London provides other opportunities for fans to have identities away from football? Which means they are less likely to feel damaged by a loss?”

The police vans and horses will be out in force again on Sunday, in anticipation of trouble. Broadcasters and social media accounts will remind us that this is a blood feud, a dynastic dispute almost as old as north London itself. Many of the fans descending on Tottenham from Islington and Stoke Newington, from Hackney and Heathrow airport, from the suburbs and the home counties, will have paid hundreds or even thousands to secure their place: a measure, perhaps, of just how deep the passion runs.

Then a whistle will blow and the conflagration can begin: two tribes who thoroughly despise each other, or at least feel as if they probably should.

Ange Postecoglou is adamant Spurs will not change their freewheeling approach for anyone and that conceding goals comes with the territory in attempting to establish themselves as a force at the top of the Premier League.

Tottenham host Arsenal on Sunday afternoon, hoping to make an early-season statement after a mixed start that has seen them lose points to sucker punches at Leicester and Newcastle.

Their north London rivals will be primed to expose the spaces Postecoglou’s side often leave but he is not worried about the prospect of a hefty goals-against tally at the end of the campaign. “If you’re going to be more attacking, you’re going to have more gaps the other way,” he said. “I get it. People say: ‘We want you to be more attacking, but we want you to be really solid defensively.’ We’re talking about perfection. That doesn’t exist with anyone.

“We’re erring on the side of being more attacking and aggressive, which may mean we concede more than others, but that’s fine. I’m comfortable in that space.”

In April’s edition of this fixture, Arsenal raced into a three-goal interval lead that proved decisive despite two Tottenham responses. Mikel Arteta’s players enjoyed particular success on the counter that afternoon and Postecoglou was asked whether there could be any temptation to adopt a more circumspect approach this time. “I guess there can be,” he said. “But there won’t be.”

It was put to Postecoglou that a high-profile derby win could restore faith among supporters concerned by their drop-off in form, which saw five of their last seven games in 2023-24 end in defeat. “If people have lost faith in what we’re doing, I cannot let that be my guide to what we’re doing,” he said. “My guide is what I see on a daily basis, the way we play our football, the way the team is growing and I’m as optimistic and as bullish as I’ve ever been.

“I want to win big games. But we won big games early last season. It doesn’t mean it’s going to get you to where you want to get to. There’s got to be a consistency in approach. There’s nothing I’ve seen to make me waver in my belief about what we’re doing. There’s only one way to change [perceptions] if people have lost faith in what we’re doing here and that is to perform and win.”

Postecoglou commented on the FA charge given to Rodrigo Bentancur for alleged misconduct after a remark made about his teammate Son Heung-min in June. “They had their discussions about the whole incident and both players understand and respect each other’s position,” he said. “Rodri has already apologised for what he said and Sonny has accepted that. We understand that even though [Bentancur] is a great guy and a fantastic teammate, he has made a big error this time and he has to take the punishment, but also that we [need to] give him the opportunity to atone for it and learn from it.”

Micky van de Ven and Dominic Solanke, who have missed the past one and two matches respectively through injury, are available. Yves Bissouma is a doubt with what Postecoglou described as “a tweak in his groin”.

Mikel Arteta has said Raheem Sterling must rebuild his confidence after being discarded by Chelsea and, before Sunday’s north London derby, has backed the England forward to rediscover his best form.

Sterling is in contention to make his Arsenal debut at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after completing his loan move on deadline day. The 29-year-old was surplus to requirements at Chelsea two years after joining from Manchester City and Arteta said it had taken only a 10-second conversation with Sterling to persuade him to pursue a deal.

But the Arsenal manager, who worked closely with Sterling at City while as an assistant to Pep Guardiola, also recognised that the player had lost confidence after his experiences at Chelsea and losing his place in the England squad.

“That is going to fluctuate in everybody’s career,” Arteta said. “Knowing him and how he is about always playing, always being present and important, when you have that status and role, for that to be changed, that hits you. We have to rebuild that but we have all the foundations and right context for him to get to the level we want.”

Arteta, asked whether he thought Sterling still possessed the hunger to succeed at the highest level, said: “His first words were: ‘I was dreaming about this call.’ That’s it. That tells you that he really wants it and was already thinking about the possibility and he could see himself here, delivering and enjoying his profession. When that happened, the rest I knew about him, so that blew all the question marks away. It is one of the things I love most about Raz – you take him to any ground, anywhere in the world, and he is willing to be there to make the difference.”

Sterling is vying with Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard to start against Spurs on the left of Arsenal’s attack, although Arteta could mix things up if Martin Ødegaard is unfit. Tests on the Norway midfielder’s injured ankle have proved inconclusive but Arsenal are understood to be hopeful it is not as bad as feared and Arteta refused to rule him out of contention. It seems unlikely he will be available, in which case Arteta will be without three key midfielders given Declan Rice’s suspension and the shoulder injury sustained by Mikel Merino.

Arteta – who said he had “higher ambitions to fulfil” at Arsenal after signing a new three-year contract this week – insisted he would have no qualms about starting Ethan Nwaneri after being impressed with the 17-year-old playmaker’s progress since being added to the first team squad.

“I think big credit to everybody working in the academy that have prepared the player to be in the right position right now to shine,” he said. “He’s been doing really well, physically very mature, personally very mature, his game understanding has improved a lot. And then let him do it. He has an enormous quality, a lot of talent and he needs the space to shine.”