By finishing with 86 points last season, second-placed Spurs still ended up seven points below champions Chelsea.
But Spurs were 10 points better than fourth-place Liverpool, who edged out Arsenal, who were relegated to the irrelevant Europa League.
Arsenal have always budgeted for one season out of the Champions League but that’s never happened until now.
Never mind that the Champions League is a misnomer and a fudge.
The European Cup was a competition between Champions and it was a sorry day when the bullying Berlusconi invented the Champions League to keep AC Milan and other clubs with mega wage bills on our TV screens for at least five months.
This North London derby?
You don’t have to wait till 4pm on Sunday to watch it.
Arsenal v Spurs is a breakfast game on Saturday, kicking off at Ashburton Grove at 12.30. Referee is Mike Dean.
My view before seeing the line-ups?
I think Pochettino’s style of football is exciting and bold and positive. Spurs are very energetic and love to slice through you and get into scoring positions as soon as possible.
While Wenger’s style of football is based on playing 25 passes between eight attackers grouped high up the pitch.
The two 0-0 draws with Germany and Brazil showed how much England missed Tottenham’s bang!bang! twins, Harry Kane and Dele Alli.
Their mate Christian Eriksen was needed by Denmark for their game in Dublin, which was not a friendly. It was the second leg of a World Cup play-off and, after conceding an early goal, the Danes thrashed the ROI 5-1, with Eriksen the star of that dramatic match. Two fizzing right foot shots, plus a left foot shot to complete his hat-trick
Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez don’t want to be at Arsenal and Ozil is just using the club as a place to train before Russia. Having won one World Cup, he is still internationally-motivated.
Lacazette, who scored twice for France in the 2-2 draw in Cologne, could be a bang!bang! player if Arsenal played a dynamic game like Spurs.
But they will stick with multi-passing the ball into the net because Wenger’s idea of defence is to keep possession 70 yards from Petr Cech.
Talking of possession, Arsenal’s busy data analysts will have known that Xhaka gives the ball away more than any other footballer in the Premier League well before that fact appeared in the newspapers. Xhaka has already misplaced 153 passes this season.
Memo to Xhaka: don’t pass to Kane, don’t pass to Dele and don’t don’t don’t give it to Eriksen.
In most seasons I say: let me see 10 games.
Now I’m saying: let me see 12 games.
Let me see Arsenal v Spurs and Leicester v Man City.
Let me see Manchester United beat Newcastle at Old Trafford,let me find out whether West Brom can draw with Chelsea.