Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
A difficult week got quite a bit better as Arsenal completed the double over Spurs this season, closed the gap on Liverpool, and beat Spurs to make Spurs sad. The twats.
Mikel Arteta handed a rare start to Raheem Sterling, and he should have put us ahead early on but bizarrely stopped his run after fine work from Myles Lewis-Skelly put him through on goal. I don’t really know what he was thinking. We dominated the opening stages, with some shots, some corners, and some pressure on their new keeper who got away with one when Kai Havertz worked really hard to close him down.
In what felt like typical fashion though, our inability to turn the dominance into a goal came back to bite us when they went ahead in the 25th minute. Son’s shot from the edge of the box deflected off William Saliba and in, but it had been a disorganised 60 seconds or so. Pape Sarr was allowed all the time and space in the world to carry the ball into our half to win a corner which led to the goal, and we didn’t do enough defensively in either phase of play.
After the the FA cup exit and the semi-final first leg defeat, you couldn’t help but worry a bit. How would we respond? Could we respond? Leando Trossard sent Porro to the shops with a turn which left the full-back in a heap, weirdly the ref stopped play – perhaps to give him a chance to sort his innards out after being twisted so wildly inside-out by the Belgian. But then a crunching tackle from MLS eventually led to a corner, Rice delivered, Gabriel was there at the back post to head home – although officially it has gone down as a Dominic Solanka own goal (harsh on him and Gabriel in my opinion).
Just a few minutes later, Partey won the ball in midfield with a good tackle, Martin Odegaard fed Trossard on the left, and his fizzing shot bounced just in front of Kinsky and into the back of the net. It’s one of those you’d expect the keeper to save, but I think we have to credit the Belgian for having a go from a position too few Arsenal players would pull the trigger from. On his wrong foot too. Sometimes you get rewarded for trying something a bit more difficult, instead of always looking for the perfect opening, and that was very much the case with this goal.
So, rather than going into the break with a half-time postmortem on the cards, we’d put ourselves into a solid position. They made attacking changes at the break, and to some extent it work. They went from 35% possession in the first 45, to 55% in the second, but of course we had something to hold onto.
There were moments when we could have scored again. A couple of headers from Havertz, Sterling with another chance he dallied over before being replaced by Gabriel Martinelli, Rice cracking a shot off the keeper who knew nothing about it, an Odegaard chance late on, and just small things we could have done a bit better to cause them more problems in the attacking third. By 75 minutes though, Mikel Arteta had decided to grind this one out. Kieran Tierney came on for Trossard to play ahead of Lewis-Skelly, Gabriel and Saliba were monsters at the back, and we cycled through a few changes as we got towards the end of the 90 minutes.
The only moment of real danger came right at the death when Porro hit the outside of the post with a shot but at that point they’d brought on Richarlison who seemed more interested in starting a ruck than scoring a goal. Which, I suppose, is the story of his Tottenham career – he’s had a lot more success with one than the other. I don’t think they keep stats for xR though, and this preening cock(erel) was about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.
I genuinely loved him trying to push Lewis-Skelly off the pitch and the 18 year old just laughing at him, before taking a yellow card and gesturing the crowd as he made his way back to the Arsenal bench. I don’t necessarily think this was a coming of age performance from him, but I don’t think we’ve thought or worried too much about his emergence – and that is entirely to his credit. When team line-ups are announced, there’s always some online reaction/drama, but it says so much that nobody bats en eyelid when we select an 18 year old – who has played most of his youth career as a midfielder – at left-back for a North London derby of this importance.
He was superb last night. Mikel Arteta called him ‘phenomenal’, and his post-game interview with Ian Wright summed up his personality and mentality. When Wrighty asked him if he was worried at all about facing up against established senior players like Kulusevski and Johnson, he said:
“Never. Never afraid of no one. I want to go against the best. I want to be the best. You have to go against the best to be the best.”
Are you not entertained? Just so impressive, from a player who is barely into double figures in terms of senior appearances. He plays without any fear whatsoever, which isn’t atypical for a young player when they make their breakthrough, but in a season which has thrown up so many difficulties and challenges, his emergence has been one of the really positive stories of this campaign.
Afterwards, Mikel Arteta summed up the night, saying:
I’m very proud of the team, I think we were sensational. I think it was a good test to see after two big performances and not getting rewarded in two different competitions. You have to play the biggest game of the season for our people in those conditions, and it’s a test of attitude. You know what we are made of, the courage that we have, how much we really care only about a result or the performance and how much we can do in terms of what is required in the game to be better than the opposition.
I think we played from the minute one to hurt them with or without the ball. I think we fully deserve to win the game. I think we made a lot of people very happy, but especially very proud to see a team that behaves in the manner that they have played to it again.
Was it perfect? Are there things we can still do better? Of course, but in the context of this week and this specific fixture, the only thing that really matters is that we took all three points – particularly after Liverpool were held to a draw on Tuesday night. We are still in there scrapping away, and hopefully this result and performance can help heal the connection between the team and the fans which had become a bit strained in recent times. It was a reminder that even in this imperfect form, this is a team capable and willing to fight for the title.
As for what else this month might bring after the Gabriel Jesus news, Arteta was asked on TNT Sports afterwards if the club was looking to bring someone in this month. He said:
Yes for sure because we lost two players, big players. Bukayo could be out for up to three months, so that’s a long time and Gabi that’s going to be out for a long, long time. We’re going to try for sure. I mean we are actively looking. I think we have lost two very, very important players, we have 14 players in the squad and we play every three days, so we will try but let’s see what we can get.
The derby win eases the pressure but there’s another big game in a couple of days time when Aston Villa come to town. In the meantime though, we can rest up some weary legs, take stock, and hopefully behind the scenes we can augment a squad which – when you look at the Premier League table – is still very much in the running. What a boost a good signing might bring. Fingers crossed.
Right, that’s it – we’ll have a post-game Arsecast for you a little later on, so standby for that. For now, I’ll leave it there.
Have a good one!
