It’s been 15 years since Tottenham Hotspur has beaten Arsenal in league play at the Emirates Stadium. That streak continued today. Son Heung-Min put Spurs ahead in the first half of the North London Derby, but Arsenal got two goals — one controversial own goal from Dominic Solanke after a wrongly-awarded corner kick, and another from Leandro Trossard, and the hosts held on to take the 2-1 win.
Tottenham’s starting lineup only featured one major surprise: Lucas Bergvall got the start in midfield over James Maddison, who began the NLD on the bench. The young Swede lined up beside Yves Bissouma and Pape Sarr, with Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke, and Son Heung-Min making up the forward line. Radu Dragusin and Archie Gray anchored the back line, with Pedro Porro and Djed Spence as the fullbacks. New signing Antonin Kinsky started between the sticks. Richarlison, freshly back from a hamstring injury, was named to the bench.
The match started off scary with Arsenal employing a frightening early press that kept Spurs pinned back, but Tottenham found their foothold, and played Arsenal pretty even over the course of the match. A draw was probably the deserved result today, but once again Spurs were the losers in a narrowly-decided affair, as Arsenal did the double over Tottenham in league play.
Here are my match reactions.
Match Reactions
- Another match where we played a good team more or less even and lost by one goal thanks to some really crappy luck. I’ve seen this movie so many times this season. I think we’re now 0-10 in matches decided by one goal. I don’t think we deserved to win today, but I definitely think we deserved a draw.
- The opening 20 minutes of this match was pure terror. Just nothing but last-ditch defending and peeking-from-behind-the-couch moments on numerous set pieces. Irritated that we didn’t seem to have a plan for preventing Set Piece FC from doing what they do best, though we did mostly handle those moments well.
- Kinsky is a maniac with the ball at his feet, and I think I’m in love with him.
- I was really worried about Pedro Porro after he appeared to hyper-extend his knee after getting turned by Trossard. The replay looked pretty bad, but it seems that was, in the words of one of my colleagues, just Pedro being “embarrassed and Spanish”.
- Considering how much one-way traffic it was in Arsenal’s favor for the first 20 minutes, I absolutely love that Sonny scored the opener on a deflected shot off Saliba. Just glorious.
- Djed Spence had a rough time of it in the first half, looked really uncomfortable for much of it, but had that one cross towards Solanke that was immaculate.
- Pisses me off that Set Piece FC’s equalizer comes off of a horrible missed call that granted them a phantom corner. Wish VAR would look at those because those kinds of situations get miscalled all the time and you’d think the league would want to get them right.
- The second Arsenal goal is awful keeping from Kinsky, the first time we’ve really see him make a significant mistake with his positioning. But equal blame can go to Bissouma who had a pass available before the giveaway and instead tried to dribble through two Arsenal players. Kinsky had a couple of nervy moments, which I
- Ange making two halftime subs is almost unprecedented without an injury, but Johnson and Maddison for Sarr and Bissouma is a bold and aggressive move. It meant, functionally, that Spurs didn’t really have a midfield, and it did prevent Spurs from building attacks the normal way from the back. Arsenal also were able to move through the midfield almost at will as Spurs weren’t able to really effectively press.
- Dominic Solanke had a really poor match today — we needed him to be an outlet and to put away chances and he was neither. Same with Kulusevski — not sure if it’s tiredness or what, but he was just off his feed in this one and his hold-up play was practically non-existent.
- Lucas Bergvall might have been our best player on the day. A real presence and also employed some dark arts to wind up Lewis-Skelly and others. Also impressed by the composure and play of Archie Gray. Is… is he just a CB now?
- He didn’t do a ton, but it was sooooooooo nice to see Richarlison out there.
- I still hate the NLD.
