‘Time to finish off Gunners’
FORMER Tottenham midfielder Jermaine Jenas says the club cannot use playing at Wembley as an excuse for failing to exert their supremacy over Arsenal this season.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side dropped just two points at home last season at White Hart Lane but struggled to adopt Wembley as their home in the Champions League.
However, after toppling Arsenal to become the top dogs of north London for the first time in two decades, Jenas, right, feels they are strong enough to mount a challenge despite the unfamiliar surroundings.
“They’ve not got the room for excuses,” he said. “They’ve invested so much to be looked at as a certain type of club and also there’s that battle of north London. Spurs have almost got their foot on Arsenal. It’s a matter of going, ‘Stay there’ right now and not allowing them to come back.
“Excuses won’t go down well anyway. Are we going to say it the year after? ‘Oh we’ve got another new stadium’. It’s an issue, but I don’t think it’s an excuse.”
A lot hangs on the ability of Dele Alli to continue his meteoric rise, and to that end Jenas says Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy should slap a £200m release cause on the England midfielder now to deter any buyers.
“If I was Daniel Levy I would be putting that tag on him right now,” said Jenas. “He’s that valuable.
“Dele has something special at the club and with that group of fans.
“If he walks into that new stadium next year and feels what I expect him to feel, it will be tough for him to leave.
“But leading up to the World Cup you can see him being the poster boy for England, so it’s a big year for Dele. “For Tottenham, it may be a bit scary as I don’t see how they keep him. If he has a season like he has just enjoyed then performs well for England, you can pretty much say he has gone to Real Madrid or Barcelona just like that.”
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