Spurs 2-3 Arsenal: Saka and Havertz shine in chaotic derby win

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

Football, as I have often said, is a bit mental, and yesterday’s North London provided the full gamut of hilarity, quality, and terror – but thankfully Arsenal came away from White Hart Lane with all three points.

Mikel Arteta named an unchanged side from Tuesday’s 5-0 win over Chelsea, and I think it’s fair to say that our first half was a bit odd. We didn’t play with the kind of security you’ve come to expect from this Arsenal side, turning over possession in scrappy fashion, giving encouragement to the opposition, but at the same time we were dangerous.

Kai Havertz had the ball in the back of the net but the flag went up, and just a minute later we were ahead when a Declan Rice shot deflected behind for a corner. Bukayo Saka took it, the Arsenal players moved through the Spurs box like migrating geese, causing so much confusion Hojberg headed into his own net. Ben White fiddling with the Vicario’s gloves as the corner was being taken was both hilarious, and a demonstration that they didn’t do their homework, because leaving him alone to annoy the goalkeeper at this point of the season is quite the oversight.

At the other end though, Spurs caused us problems from corners. Romero headed just wide, then headed one onto the post, before they had the ball in the net via van de Ven, but it was ruled out for a very tight offside. Close calls. They had two shouts for a penalty just before our second goal, but for me, neither of them were. The first was Kulusevski clipping his own heels, perhaps there was a tiny touch by Trossard but it was so minimal if it happened it didn’t warrant a spot kick. The other was when James Maddison tried to cheat, and the ref was having none of it. Because he knows Maddison is a little cheat – witness him going to ground holding his face when he and Tomiyasu were grappling from a corner later on. There was no contact on his face. He’s just a diver who spend £6000 on the worst bag in history.

From there though, what Arsenal did was superb. Saka was involved, playing it wide to Havertz, and I thought the German had delayed the pass a bit too long. However, Saka stayed onside, the pass was excellent, and watch the first touch again if you can. It’s just perfect. He then drove into the box, and even with an imperfect touch in there, had enough to terrorise Ben Davies and finish with his left foot for 2-0.

Another corner brought about the third, and more funny business. Again Ben White was annoying the goalkeeper with no Spurs player doing anything about it, and when Rice delivered, Havertz was there to head home. 3-0 Arsenal, and the three unfortunate looking lads who had been giving Rice abuse as he was taking the corner, shut up pretty quickly and got a bit back from the Arsenal midfielder.

So, despite not being at our best, we were 3-0 up at the break, and if you can have any real regrets about this game it’s that we didn’t step on them even more in the second half. There were chances. Tomiyasu sent a diving header over, great play from Havertz saw Saka get a volley on target only Vicario to make a superb save, and there were a couple of other moments where the final pass/action didn’t quite come off.

Then, a horrible mistake from David Raya saw Romero score for 3-1. I know what he was trying to do with the pass, but even as Arteta defended the response of his goalkeeper, he acknowledged it was the wrong option. I have to say, I’d rather focus on how he and the team responded, the scenes at the end were really nice between him and the other players, and his performance after the error was really impressive. His handling and decisiveness in the box was very, very good, but there’s no getting away from the fact that conceding that goal was the catalyst for a scary final period.

It wasn’t as if we were immediately under the cosh, but it gave them some hope. There is, of course, a school of thought that giving them a lifeline and ultimately coming out on top is more painful, and I get that to an extent. But not making that mistake, and scoring another to make it 4-0 would have been even more difficult for them and that would have been my strong preference. When Declan Rice conceded an obvious penalty which Son scored in the 87th minute, we were in for a nervy final few minutes.

I don’t know about you, but those were long, long minutes. Richarlison decided to run into Gabriel, we had a moment in their box, they had some free kicks and a corner which saw the keeper go up. I love this team, I love what they do (for the most part), but if Spurs had grabbed an equaliser I’d have packed a bag, left a note for my family, changed my name to Jackie Daytona, and gone to work in a small beach town where nobody knows me and I’d have stayed there slinging drinks for the rest of my days. The regulars and people of the town would say to each other ‘Despite his jocular demeanour behind the bar, there’s just something so fundamentally sad about him. I wonder what tragedy befell him?’, thinking it was some kind of great loss rather than a scrappy goal in a game of association football, but I would never tell.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen, I’m still here, the final whistle blew, and for the second season in a row we took all three points at their place. It wasn’t perfect, but as I keep saying, at this point in the season, it doesn’t have to be. You just have to win, and I think despite some things we could obviously have done better, to win two London derbies in five days, scoring 8 goals, and taking 6 points, is a brilliant way to navigate what was, on paper, a difficult week. In comparison, City had it easy with games against a Brighton side in terrible form, and a Nottingham Forest side that could be still out there now and they wouldn’t score. Chris Woodn’t, if you ask me.

Afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:

It was a really emotional game, a really tough place to come in this stadium and a tough team to play against. We were 3-0 up, in control of the game, then in the second half we were dominating the game and creating chances. Then an individual error happens, that puts a message in your brain. We were dealing with the situations better, another [goal] and then it’s game on. They have the players and the quality to commit a lot of players forward. We had to suffer and react and I’m very pleased that we did.

It’s probably not a thing we need to analyse in too much depth right now, but while Arsenal’s defensive record is generally excellent it feels like we give away too many goals via individual errors. I’m sure it’s something Arteta and his coaching staff are well aware of, but both of their goals yesterday were gift-wrapped by us. Sure, they had some moments in the first half, but this game was playing out in uneventful fashion until the Raya mistake.

As I said though, I liked the way they reacted, in-game and at the end. Mistakes happen in football, it’s about how you deal with them, and we’re a long way from the kind of culture where somebody would do something stupid then point fingers at somebody else while everyone just trudged back to the halfway line for kick-off again. Yes, we have to cut those silly concessions out, but this is unquestionably a team that has each others backs.

Finally, just a word for two players who I thought were outstanding yesterday. First Saka, who got booted around all day long and barely got a free kick for it, but who scored a brilliant goal in a big game, and forced the initial OG with excellent delivery. It certainly caused some of their fans to shut up very quickly:

This is hilarious pic.twitter.com/24NrQ0eqw5

— Fun With Flares (@Funwithflares) April 28, 2024

Also, Kai Havertz was the perfect centre-forward for us in this game. A goal and an assist are the obvious takeaways from his performance, but he gave us a real outlet, won aerial duels from the off, held it up well to ease pressure, and his work ethic and hard running is so impressive. He’s been very important to this team in 2024, and let’s hope there’s even more to come.

So, we remain top, all we can do is win our games and hope City slip up somewhere. Perhaps a burning sense of injustice from Spurs will see them do something hilarious in the context of this title race, but for now it’s about a bit of rest, then preparing for Bournemouth on Saturday.

Right, let’s leave it there for now. We are recording an Arsecast Extra for you this morning, so keep an eye out for the call for questions on Twitter @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.

Podcast should be out around midday. Until then.

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