Arsenal ‘exposed Tottenham’s guilty secret’ as Premier League title handed over

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·23 febbraio 2026

Arsenal ‘exposed Tottenham’s guilty secret’ as Premier League title handed over

The incredibly well-remunerated Martin Samuel of The Times has spotted something: Tottenham are really not very good.

And how did this come to his attention? Well, they lost to the best team in England and quite possibly Europe. Nothing gets past Samuel.

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Here’s the headline:

Exposed by Arsenal, diminished Tottenham could now be in real trouble

Two wins in 17 games? Fine. Two wins in 18 games? Real trouble.

‘Mikel Arteta’s potential champions refused to treat Spurs as members of the elite, brushing them aside with a contempt that could encourage others to do the same,’ apparently.

Encourage others to do the same? Burnley didn’t even treat Spurs as members of the elite, fella.

They have not won a single Premier League game in 2026. And the only single way that run was going to end v Arsenal was if Arsenal themselves imploded.

Sunday was a day of revelation in north London. Play like this, and Arsenal await their coronation; Tottenham may yet leave like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, cowering in that car.

Bollocks it was. Sunday taught us that Arsenal will not go quietly into the bottling narrative night, but we learned nothing about Tottenham. We already knew they were sh*te; they’ve been showing us that for nigh-on two seasons.

They played Tottenham as they would the 16th-best team in the Premier League. Not quite as good as Leeds United. Worse than Crystal Palace, Fulham and Brentford. If the rest of the league cotton onto this, Tottenham could be in real trouble.

‘Cotton on’? You’re the only one who hadn’t noticed, fella. You’d think West Ham fan Samuel might perhaps have spotted that West Ham beat Tottenham barely more than a month ago. They seemed to have ‘cottoned on’ quite a while ago to the fact that Spurs are sh*te.

Reputation is doing a lot of their heavy lifting right now, the fact that opponents will afford them respect.

Not sure how we can put this any clearer: They are the worst team in the Premier League in 2026. Nobody is giving them any respect. There’s nothing new to see here.

It wasn’t so long ago this was a club with the self-regard and status to attempt a break from English football, forming a Super League with Real Madrid and Barcelona. Arsenal were invited too. That was the company Tottenham kept. No more. Not this season.

The ‘self-regard’? Did you think that Spurs should have turned down a seat at that table? And there’s a pesky fact here: The Premier League table on April 19, 2021 when the Super League was announced? Spurs were above Arsenal.

Premier League clubs behaved reprehensibly throughout that process but there was zero chance that Spurs were going to voluntarily exempt themselves from that elite group because they were not historically one of the most successful clubs in the Premier League.

And as for ‘no more’? Does somebody want to point Samuel towards the Champions League table? If there was a Super League breakaway again tomorrow, Spurs would still be invited. They are ninth in the Deloitte Money League and that sadly means more than being 16th in the Premier League table.

Tottenham’s next opponents are Fulham, away. Fulham have already beaten them once in this campaign. Fulham have won more games, scored more goals, have eight more points and sit six places higher. What if Fulham, too, decide on a reality check?

‘Decide on a reality check’? They have literally beaten them already this season. This is getting weird now.

And then we get to Samuel on Arsenal, who literally drew with pretty-much-relegated Wolves last week:

In the second half, Arsenal simply eased into their position of superiority. Play like this, win their remaining games, and they will be champions. Of course, mathematically, it also remains Manchester City’s title to lose. If they, too, win every game between now and the end of the season it is City’s by a point. They have a game in hand and the teams meet at the Etihad Stadium on April 18.

‘Play like this, win their remaining games’ is wonderfully simplistic, especially if we ignore that Arsenal have not won at the Etihad under Mikel Arteta and not at all since January 2015. They absolutely should win the Premier League title, but not because they beat a woeful Tottenham side on Sunday.

Oh and flexing about Viktor Gyokeres because he has drawn level with Dominic Calvert-Lewin on 10 Premier League goals this season is really very odd even for a West Ham fan for whom a striker in double figures is fantasy material.

And Samuel has some news for us: Arsenal have absolutely definitely never been in this position before.

City were better, in those years. They were the treble winners in 2022-23, in 2023-24 they had signed Erling Haaland. Arsenal did not fold, more they were caught.

Oh they were caught in 2023, alright. Just after they had folded with two points in back-to-back games against West Ham and Southampton after being eight points ahead.

But we will leave Samuel with the final word on Spurs:

Now Arsenal have exposed Tottenham’s guilty secret, there might even be a queue forming.

Mediawatch is baffled: Why did Tottenham sack Thomas Frank two weeks ago if nobody had spotted that they were one of the worst teams in the Premier League? That was a pretty hefty clue.

Indeed, Samuel himself wrote after Frank was sacked that Tottenham were ‘tanking and relegation (was) now more than just an idle threat’.

Can it still be a ‘guilty secret’ if every f***er knows?

Note to incredibly well-paid columnists: It’s okay to sometimes admit that the best team in England convincingly beat the 16th-best team in England and it tells us nothing about either.