Arsenal beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 on Wednesday night to move to within four points of the top of the Premier League.
The hosts dominated the early exchanges, but Spurs scored with one of their first opportunities of the match. A deflected Son Heung-min strike went past goalkeeper David Raya to give the visitors the lead.
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But Arsenal overturned in 4 minutes. First, Gabriel’s head in the corner touched Dominic Solanke before heading into the back of the net. Then, Leandro Trossard Complex and scored remotely for Arsenal.
An end-to-end second half yielded no further goals.
Athletics experts Art de Roché, Jack Pitt-Brooke, Jay Harris and Aantaajith Raghuraman analyzed the game.
Arsenal had missed opportunities to make up ground on Liverpool in recent weeks — which made this north London derby win even more important. The league leaders still have a game in hand, but closing the gap to four points should give Arsenal encouragement for the second half of the season.
The weight of the game could be felt in the ground throughout the game. After two disappointing cup defeats, the stadium was the loudest it had been all season, driving the players on.
Buoyed by the noise of the home crowd, Kai Havertz set the tone with a rendition of the key line. The fans did not remain silent either after the credit given to the Spurs, fueling an emergency in the area that was key to the comeback at the end of the first half.
From a footballing point of view, he has helped Arsenal to attack with much more determination than in games. That was shown in their goal at the moment, with Martin Odegaard and Trossard making the resolution to pass and shoot a lot than in past games.
However, this result will only matter if they verify it. Losing to Aston Villa at home was fateful last season, so facing them this weekend is an opportunity to set the record directly and begin a mandatory race to catch up with Liverpool.
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The eleventh defeat of the season in the Premier League for Tottenham leaves 14 positions in the fourth place. It should be noted that these are two editions of the West Ham United, which has played slightly well all season and has just replaced its coach.
This is not the worst performance of the Tottenham season. They had some intelligent moments in the break in the second half, they took the lead, just to let the game escape just before the break. Then they had a lot of openness in the second half, but they were never ready enough to take advantage of the advantage. Pedro Porro even finished off the post in the supplementary time.
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The problem for Spurs is that every team has injuries and yet few teams in recent memory have underperformed as badly as Tottenham currently are. They don’t know how to find a way to win games they do not dominate. And, frankly, with better finishing from Arsenal, this would have been a more embarrassing scoreline than it was.
Jack Pitt Brooke
Tottenham survived an onslaught from Arsenal in the opening half an hour to take the lead through Son but their bubble burst in the 40th minute when Solanke scored an own goal from Declan Rice’s corner.
It was a well-worked move as Gabriel made a darting run towards the back post and his header bounced off Solanke past Antonin Kinsky but Spurs will feel understandably frustrated as the corner should not have been given.
A through ball released Trossard down the left wing and Porro, who had slipped awkwardly a few minutes before, did well to keep up with him. Porro blocked Trossard’s left-footed cross and it appeared to hit the Arsenal winger’s right leg before it went out of play. The officials awarded Arsenal a corner, though, and less than a minute later all of Tottenham’s hard work was undone.
Tottenham’s record in the set in defence has improved, however, it would have been frustrating to concede from corners for the moment opposite Arsenal this season.
Jay Harris
Encounters like these are faced with the understanding that margins for error are small and neither team helped the other, conceding as a product of avoidable errors.
In the moments leading up to Spurs’ opening, Arsenal signed plenty of men in attack, but have not followed enough equivalent energy, allowing goalkeeper Kinsky to place Papa Matar Sarr on acres of space. Sarr forced the ball to be carried for about 3 quarters for the duration of the area before winning a corner from Thomas Partey. While Tottenham played a short corner, Arsenal were slow to react to their initial authorisation and did not close down his son, who scored with a tame effort through a dethrution.
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The home team’s equalizer came in fortuitous cases, with the referee wrongly awarding Arsenal a corner when the ball went to Trossard’s leg after a challenge by Porro. But Spurs did themselves no favors in the area. Kinsky completely misread a great delivery from Declan Rice, while Radu Dragusin lost Gabriel, who hit the far post and put enough pressure on to force Solanke’s goal.
The Spurs will not need to see the third goal. Yves Bissouma was lazy with the ball in his own field, which allowed to win it and locate Odegaard. With the Spurs taking men ahead in possession, Odegaard can prepare Trosssard without problems. Who has finished the movement, some will rightly ask if Kinsky, who participated in the shot, could simply have left him out.
Mikel Arteta and Ange Postcoglou would have been happy.
Anantaajith raghuraman
After Gabriel Jesus joined Bukayo Saka and Ethan Nwaneri on the injured list, it’s a big night for Raheem Sterling at right wing.
This was his first league start since October, when he was sacrificed to replace William Saliba after his red card away at Bournemouth, and unfortunately, it was summed up by an action inside the opening minutes of the game.
Played through Myles Lewis-Skelly, Sterling was in a wonderful position to apply a first time, but to hit and the opportunity disappeared. He had a similar moment when he was played through Havertz’s Internal The Box at the time, only to inflate his lines. The effort was there for the maximum part, but confidence and clarity seemed to be lacking in very important moments.
For example, the winger worked well to locate the ball in loose duels, but had trouble getting past Djed Spence on the right. His coaching activities affected Manchester United, but Spence’s structure and little help in the overlap made it more difficult for Sterling.
This became more noticeable in the early part, as enthusiasts in the West allowed him to take advantage of each and every opportunity, but the pop just wasn’t there.
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Sterling did have some bright moments, with backheels to Jurrien Timber inside the box and driving runs through the centre of the pitch. This being his first league start in three months could make the inconsistency in his performance understandable. Moving forward, however, more decisiveness (and potentially support) could be needed when Arsenal attack through him.
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It was a fast forward for English football for Kinsky, however, it was a reminder that perhaps other people would be more patient with Tottenham’s new goalkeeper.
Kinsky was put under pressure throughout and struggled to cope with it. No one could question his confidence with the ball at his feet but he had to scramble in the first half when Havertz charged down one of his kicks. It did not help that Archie Gray and Dragusin were struggling to build up from the back, so tended to pass the ball back to Kinsky every single time. Kinsky was under more pressure than he needed to be.
But Kinsky’s disorders were not only due to the ball at his feet. When Arsenal equalized, it was partly because Kinsky got caught in a corner and couldn’t get a hold of the ball.
Four minutes later, it was game time when Trossard hit a hard shot into the bottom corner and Kinsky got his hand on him but couldn’t save the ball. This was not how he would have thought in his first derby in north London.
Jack Pitt-Brooke
Arteta told BBC Sport: “Today we were exceptional. From the first minute we were there, intense. We play with the true purpose of harming them. We have created an incredible atmosphere.
“We know what the game is like. It is a gift that we can make enthusiasts very happy.
“The attitude we play with, without feeling sorry for ourselves, phenomenal. “
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Postecoglou said: “There’s no magic cure. You’ve got to get up tomorrow, work hard and go into Sunday and prepare to go into battle and turn around our fortunes and our season. There’s nothing magical that’s going to change it. There are always reasons for all these things to happen.
“The truth is our effects and shape in the league have been nowhere close to smart enough. This will have to change.
Saturday, January 18: Aston Villa (H), Premier League, 5:30 p. m. GMT, 12:30 p. m. In
Sunday, January 19: Everton (A), Premier League, 2pm GMT, 9am ET