I STOPPED listening to anything Garth Crooks says back in 2013 when he declared that “Tottenham have sold Elvis and bought The Beatles”.

Elvis it turned out was Gareth Bale and The Beatles, well they were a bunch of doomed desperados signed by Spurs with the money they had received from Real Madrid. You can insert any number of terrible bands here to describe what really happened.

Try it yourself: Tottenham have sold Elvis and bought Scouting For Girls, Tottenham have sold Elvis and bought the Blazin’ Squad, Tottenham have sold Elvis and bought Milli Vanilli, Menswear, McFly, MC Miker G and his mate DJ Sven.

Honestly, name your poison, it works with any of them.

All of these new signings were gradually dropped apart from Erik Lamela, who inexplicably stuck around long enough to find himself at risk of being replaced by the man he had originally been bought to replace. For now Spurs have re-signed Elvis and, for a sparkling half against West Ham at the weekend, it looked like it might not be the slurry Las Vegas version of The King after all.

I digress. Crooks. Although I have been efficient at avoid­ing him in recent years, no defence is completely watertight and on Sunday one of his opinions slipped through – and by jove, the man, it turned out, had conjured up a good point.

After Arsenal lost to the champions-elect Manchester City, Crooks said the Gunners had been “seemingly happy just to get through this contest and finish with a respectable scoreline. It was another example of a team, who without their fans demanding they put themselves on the line, accep­ting that the opposition was too good and taking a defeat.”

He’s right isn’t he? When Arsenal went to Anfield earlier this season and wound up losing 3-1, the commentary from Martin Tyler was all about how Mikel Arteta’s team had “stayed in the game”. It had become so commonplace for Arsenal to get a pelting that it was seen as a good thing that they had restricted the scoreline to just 2-1 until the 88th minute. Tyler didn’t mean to sound patronising, he was being honest – and yet other teams have since shown it is possible to win matches away at Liverpool if you pick the right team, employ the right tactics, get a bit of luck and don’t step onto the pitch looking terrified from the off.

It felt like that on Sunday too – an unspectacular match in which Arsenal seemed relieved to finish 1-0 losers – and it reveals a lack of ambition under Arteta’s golden age of Luizian sideways passes.

Maybe Crooks is the wise old sage he asks us to believe he is after all. Or maybe he just never thought much of The Beatles’ music.