The North London derby crackles and simmers.

The North London derby crackles and simmers. Arsenal and Spurs at Wembley.

This is now the business end of the Premier League season which means most of the top six will have to wear their immaculate pin stripes and maybe a bowler hat or two for good measure. Sadly, neither Spurs or Arsenal seem likely to be knocking on the boardroom door because most of the important decisions have apparently been made. Manchester City are beginning to disappear into the light blue sunset.

At Wembley Stadium, temporary home of Spurs, both Arsenal and Spurs once again showed their most lethal attacking bayonets and only Spurs broke through an Arsenal defence which at times look so brittle that you began to wonder what the likes of former Gunners boss George Graham would have made of a creaky Arsenal defence. At times the smoke of the battleground seemed to be engulfing Arsenal with insistent wisps and flames.

 The red shirts were frequently outnumbered and left flat footed by a powerful second half performance from their noisy North London neighbours. The joints and hinges were quite definitely in desperate need of a drop of oil and a team who had overwhelmed Everton 5-1 at the Emirates, looked distinctly off the pace as a brashly confident Spurs began to look unstoppably rampant.

Now Arsenal find themselves trailing desperately behind Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham which could lead to a major bout of head shaking and rigorous self examination at the Emirates. Arsenal's attacking aptitude has never been in any question whatsoever but the Gunners were powder puff and the cannon fire which blew away Everton last week fizzled out against Spurs in an anti-climactic pop at Wembley.

This is not the time though for probing inquests and behind close doors meetings. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has been here before and although the Arsenal boss has now signed a two year contract, there were times when those poisonous rumours were still seeping through the club. Wenger, though, looks as though he's just seen the greyest of ghosts. All is not well at the Emirates and the week's break from club football couldn't have come at a better time.

During the first half both Arsenal and Spurs threw tentative jabs at each other before throwing some fairly damaging upper cuts which only marginally failed to hit the target. Of course an Arsenal and Spurs North London derby is the epitome of a heavyweight battle and has been since the birth of the 20th century. The class of 2018 can still make those grand gestures of intent and there was still a ferocious intensity about this latest instalment.

But torrents of water have passed under the bridge over the years, decades and centuries. For those of a faint hearted disposition this was another breathlessly palpitating North London derby. For roughly the first half hour this was such an evenly contested game that there was little to keep these two apart. Spurs swarmed forward in rip roaring and thoroughly enjoyable fashion without ever managing to lay a glove on their opponents in decisive fashion. Their football hummed and purred, crackling and simmering before surrounding the ring of red with quick breaking, smoothly flowing and cohesive football.

It could be said that another game of tactical chess had broken out between these two North London rivals but as half time approached Spurs had, quite clearly, left a couple of bishops and queens in the wrong place. Arsenal of course always play like swashbuckling knights but when the castle is exposed and the pawns aren't working quite as efficiently as they should Arsenal frequently look like the deposed kings.

Meanwhile back in the technical area Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal boss, stood steadfastly in his technical area in that familiar grey boiler suit -cum track suit. Wenger, in pouring rain, looked as if somebody had stolen his last fiver, a grim and dejected man who just couldn't bring himself to smile at any stage of the game. As the minutes ticked away, any colour from Wenger's face seemed to have drained away completely. He leant forward painfully from time to time with assistant coach Steve Bould next to him and the impression was that the burglars had once again raided the family home.

As for Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino, the second half of this game was rather like a birthday invitation that had to be accepted. Arsenal came out for the second half slightly punch drunk and appearing overcome by a mystery bug. Their passing, undoubtedly some of the most entrancing in the whole of the Premier League, had now been left back in a dark Wembley cloakroom and once Spurs had given prior notice of their ambitions, Arsenal were now driven back like a white juggernaut parking in the right bay.

It was now that Kieran Trippier, Davinson Sanchez, Ben Davies and Jan Vertonghen began to snap their defensive lock and flooded forward slowly but surely into attack. All four defenders seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of defensive play, timing their runs perfectly into Arsenal's increasingly embattled defence. Now it was that the dam burst and Arsenal were left like stranded stowaways on a desert island.

Most of Tottenham's most fluent and artistic football has come from midfield playmaker Christian Eriksen, the sweetest Danish pastry of all, a player of debonair airs, a graceful painter with the broadest  brush strokes, vision, peripheral vision, class and a footballer with almost prophetic powers. Eriksen glides, sways, conducts and caresses a football with enormous care and sensitivity. Eriksen's passing does bring to mind an Alan Gilzean at his most economical and once again the Danish pass maestro did what had to be done to bring down Arsenal.

With Son Heing Min jinking and shimmying away from the Arsenal defence like the proverbial jack in the box, Eric Dier providing just the required amount of height for Spurs at set pieces, Ben Davies spreading even more of a calming influence and Jan Vertonghen bobbing and darting around in the middle of the pitch deviously, Spurs had achieved a real grip on the game that Arsenal could never snatch away from them.

And then it happened. Roughly an hour into the game, Spurs were playing the most punishingly penetrative of football, the ball quickly moving from one white shirt to the other with almost wondrous accuracy. At times it almost seemed as if the ball had a mind of its own, looping around Arsenal's helpless resistance, like an unravelling piece of cotton.

After another neatly strung sequence of Spurs passes from one flank to the other, Ben Davies picked up the ball from way outside the Arsenal penalty area. Davies flighted his deep cross towards the far post and that man again Harry Kane rose the highest and most imperious of them all to plant his header into the Arsenal net. Your mind keeps travelling back to Martin Chivers and, quite certainly, Alan Gilzean but there is a bullish aggression about Kane which remains gloriously legitimate and every so often reminds you of both Chivers and Gilzean at their best.

By now Shkodran Mustafi, Koscielny, Nacho Monreal and the ever so influential Jack Wilshere, had no answer to Spurs superior use of the ball and all of those technical gadgets at their disposal. Wilshere, for his part, still looks one of the most intelligent and perceptive midfield players in the Premier League. The almost shaven headed Arsenal player is still capable of unlocking defences with a sinuous wiggle of the hips and an incisive burst but this was not to be Arsenal's day. The Spurs goal had knocked the stuffing out of Arsenal and the Gunners never really looked to be on the same page as each other.

Still there is some way to go and with over two months to go to the end of the season, both Arsenal and Spurs have much more petrol in their respective tanks. The chances are that Arsenal will still produce their decorative flourishes to any game and have to be regarded as strong contenders for a Champions League place. This is not the way Arsene Wenger would have liked things to pan out for his team but how often were George Graham's teams somewhat unfairly criticised for winning games by a single goal and then emerge as fully deserving winners of the old First Division Championship in 1989?

Spurs of course are off to Italy for their vital Champions League game against Juventus next week.  Frustratingly though Spurs may not clinch that elusive Premier League victory that might have been but is surely the property of Manchester City in a few short months. They now remain the work in progress that some at Tottenham may be growing weary of. It is all very well leaving those road cones with sand bags over them but unless somebody applies the pneumatic drill Tottenham may have to wait for their day in the sun. Somewhere out there the new White Hart Lane beckons and a return to the glory. glory years.