Tottenham Hotspur vs. Arsenal: Tactical Preview?

So yesterday Gareth Bale went HAM on West...Ham...huh. Sorry. Anyway, he was very good, his two goals helping to see Spurs over the line against their East London counterparts. His second goal was pretty gnarly, West Ham standing off and giving him the space to line up a wacky 30-yard dipping knuckler that basically was designed to make Jussi Jaaskelainen feel bad.

We know that Arsenal have had times this year where they've felt more like standing off then pressing, and they have allowed some rather embarrassing long shots due to lack of closing down. Long shots aren't super effective ways to score, but it's still not a good idea to give good players lots of space within which they can operate. So what is Arsene Wenger to do? Perhaps we can turn to the annals of military history, since sports are just warfare writ small, so to speak, right? Let us turn to WWI for the way forward against Bale, who pretty much runs the show for Spurs right now:

+

= YAY!

[Both images courtesy of wikipedia].