Remembering the day that Tottenham finished below Arsenal after eating Lasagne | OneFootball

For the first time since 2017 Arsenal have arrived at the last day of the season with a realistic mathematical chance of finishing in the top 4.

The reason why the mood is low in the red half of North London is this time last week our destiny was in our own hands.

Now we have to hope Spurs lose at Norwich, the side bottom of the table with 5 League wins in 37 attempts.

It brings back memories of the 2005/06 campaign which was the last time the Gunners and Tottenham battled each other on the final day for Champions League qualification with our rivals in control of their own fate.

Things were a bit easier back on Highbury’s last ever match day.

We could afford Spurs to draw, and they had a tough fixture in West Ham away.

While the date is remembered for Gooners saying farewell to their home, it’s also gone down in legend as ‘Lasagne gate’.

Some stories are stuff of legend, but others are believed to this day, with some players still insistent that the Chef who cooked for them supported the Gunners.

While it’s fun for our fan base to think of a man in a kitchen with our crest on his hat and apron. Banter aside, food poisoning is something horrible to have.

Up to 10 players are said to have spent the night before the trip to East London with serious sickness and or diarrhea.

It was such not a laughing matter that the police were called to their hotel the following morning.

To this day, Jermaine Jenas maintains it was too much of a coincidence that the squad would fall ill on that weekend of all weekends.

As is tradition, the Premier League like their last round of fixtures to all kick off at the same time meaning this was the one point of the year where it was hard to convince organisers to postpone the match.

Requests for a delay of 24 hours were refused.

When even pleas for an evening time slot (to give more recovery time) were denied, Martin Jol was forced to pick between individuals still visiting the toilet on the coach and those who had been sick so often, they were now suffering fatigue.

If Spurs were my team, I would have wanted Daniel Levy to have challenged the governing bodies and refused to play.

Surely you have more chance proving to the courts why you couldn’t fulfil the fixture rather than gamble by playing with such limited resources?

The irony of course is we got the NLD rearranged this year when we had far less issues.

Michael Dawson, Defoe and Michael Carrick have all gone into detail about how poorly they were that day. They all feel their manager was better off playing the youth team such was how limited they were in terms of the energy they could offer.

Considering everything, their performance at Upton Park was credible, managing to get on level terms after conceding first.

At 2-1 though, it was noticeable they didn’t have the levels to find that next gear.

Across town, Arsenal were beating Wigan 4-2 and Spurs had blown their best ever chance at that point to finish above an Arsene Wenger side for the first time and debut in UEFA’s premiere competition.

Imagine being in a dressing room, hearing the opposition celebrate, dealing with disappointment while your peers have fluids coming out of both ends.

Reports say Conte is ordering two of the club’s own in-house chefs to travel with the team to Carrol Road.

That is sensational journalism.

Spurs have had this policy for years when travelling.

Let’s just say though I don’t think Kane is ordering lasagne this weekend.

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Dan Smith

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