Spurs vs Arsenal: Instant Reaction

The North London Derby win opens up an even bigger gap

The vibes going into this among the fans were not good. It felt like most people were resigned that this match would go against them, with some sort of refereeing disaster class (thankfully VAR stopped that from happening). That compounded with the Mudryk transfer falling through with Chelsea, and Arsenal fans were on the verge of a meltdown.

Thankfully Arsenal the team didn’t show that they were affected by that at all, taking advantage of the opportunity to expand their lead at the top of the table.

Headline: Taking care of business

It would have been really easy to see this game slip away. It was all set up to have things turn the wrong way. Instead Arsenal took care of business and advantage of a rival’s slip-up to extend their lead at the top.

That’s 8 points on second place.

That’s 14 points on Spurs.

Arsenal got out to another quick start, controlling things pretty well in the first half. In the opening 15 minutes Arsenal again took the match to the opposition and this time came away with the opening goal on a howler by Lloris, who I have to say looked WASHED in this game, he looked like a shadow of his former self and was weakness in possession.

The first half was all Arsenal, with Spurs continuing their weird thing of just looking like crap. In the first half of matches this season, they have a negative goal difference and just a slightly positive xG difference. They had one decent chance but I am not certain it wasn’t offside if it is actually a goal. Outside of that one shot that I think shouldn’t have counted, it was very quiet 0.3 from 3 shots, to Arsenal’s 1.2 from 9 shots.

Arsenal got their second goal (the captain again) put things into a really good spot (the second goal put things to 90% for Arsenal to win).

Sure Spurs had some chances but never really had anything clear-cut. The best chance fell to Ryan Sessegnon but that was in the 52nd minute and after that Tottenham didn’t manage any shots above 10% with Arsenal managing to cope with the crosses and pressure pretty well.

Stock rising: Aaron Ramsdale