Talk about lurching from one extreme to the other! The midweek disaster against Wolverhampton really had us in a tizzy, but there is of course no better antidote to such soul-destroying footballing moments than a visit to 'Dr Tottenham'.
This fixture always causes nerves amongst the fanbase, but Tottenham are of course a) shockingly bad, b) massively depleted by injury and c) in absolutely terrible form to boot. So whilst nerves are natural - and this would have been added to by Wednesday's debacle - I think that we all suspected that we knew what was likely to happen. But there's always that nagging doubt...
I personally had a very testing afternoon. I could not watch the game live, as my wife and I were invited to an engagement party very shoddily organised for a 4pm start... and with the young man and his family all Arsenal fans. I mean... the heartiest of congratulations and all that, but where are your priorities, Ashley?!?
Of course, it was a wonderful, joyous occasion and we wouldn't have missed it under any circumstances, but it did make for a trying couple of hours; especially in a room chock full of Arsenal and Tottenham fans. But somehow - via a mixture of begging and threats - we managed to get home from the party - having stayed off of social media - without knowing anything of what had transpired, and sat down to watch the game 'as live'. A miracle, frankly. And we therefore got to experience all the emotions that everyone else did; except three hours later.
Anyway, not to go into too much detail on the game apart from picking up on some of the more salient points: And firstly team selection. No Havertz in the squad (I really hope he can be back for Chelsea), and disappointingly no Ben White either (one would have to seriously start to think that he may not be at the club next season, I'm sorry to say). The only alternative to a leggy Timber was therefore Mosquera, and I guess that even with Odegaard back and approaching full fitness the correct and most serendipitous choice for Mikel in the most advanced midfield role was Eberiche Eze. Hopefully this performance from Eze will have shown Arteta the way forward.
As for the home side, their new manager decided that the best way to use the few tools at his disposal was to play a central midfielder as a centre half, and select just two players who could remotely be regarded as forwards. What could possibly go wrong?
I understand that just before the game the stadium announcer pronounced over the tannoy: "They're worried. They're nervous as hell. We're calm. We're ready." Please don't ever change, Tottenham... forever finding new ways to embarrass themselves.
It was Arsenal dominance from the start, and an away goal soon looked inevitable. Gyokeres headed into the centre of goal from a Timber cross, when if he'd have gone for his near post he would have scored. Not long after, he got away from Dragusin but shot just wide. We were all wondering if it was going to be another one of those days for Viktor; although to be fair he was at least seeing a lot of the ball, making it stick, and getting his shots away. In between, Vicario showed his nerves by unnecessarily haring 25 yards out of goal to head the ball clear and almost getting caught out by Trossard's subsequent attempted lob.
Despite having their flow interrupted by an embarrassing 7 minute delay for a communication breakdown between the officials (I'm going to blame the home club for that), Arsenal soon picked up the pace once more, with the possession statistics hysterically stacked in the away side's favour. A couple more chances followed - Saliba following a corner, Trossard's attempt from 25 yards miles off target following a bizarre mistake from Simons - before the home side belatedly started to see more of the ball. Although mostly, I hasten to add, due to individual errors from Arsenal defenders, who seemed to have some sort of 'my turn to give the ball away cheaply' rota. This is something that they won't get away with against more clinical opposition.
When the goal inevitably arrived, it was apt that Eze should deliver it. An acrobatic finish from short range after Saka had fortuitously found his way past Saar and into the penalty area. Justification for Arteta's selection; and to be fair Eze was already having a decent game, as he found space consistently in front of a Tottenham back line that was being given the run around by Gyokeres. Amusingly, this was Eze's first shot on target in the Premier League since his hat-trick in the reverse fixture. He seems to be personally trolling the club for whom he so nearly signed; and I think that despite being used sparsely so far he cannot be regretting that last-ditch telephone call to Mikel Arteta. As for Simons, who Tottenham signed when they lost Eze; nah, sorry - not fit to lace Eze's boots.
It took just 20 or so seconds following the restart for Declan Rice - who had been in the middle of the huddle following the goal cajoling his team-mates to concentrate and not let the lead slip - to join his team-mates in giving the ball away. And this time it was punished when Muani finally broke his Premier League duck by breezing past an unusually weak Saliba challenge (perhaps concerned about conceding a penalty) with a rasping shot down low to Raya's left. At least Dec could see the funny side; and he held his hands up, and then rolled up his sleeves. Of course, you don't want to give the neanderthals in the home crowd any oxygen, but they were naturally joyous - it was, after all , their first foray into Arsenal's penalty area.
But despite the jolt to the system I can't say that I was too worried; so poor were Tottenham overall and despite them profiting from a little bit of basketball-type stuff towards the end of the half (with Arsenal still looking far more likely...).
To give him his due Muani, who has managed to look the shadow of the player that we've previously seen in a PSG and France national shirt now that he's plying his trade in N17, was giving both Arsenal centre backs a hard time. Towards the end of the half Gabriel was probably fortunate not to concede a free kick - or worse - as he tangled with the forward under a high ball. And there was a later incident, to which I'll refer in a couple of paragraphs.
1-1 at half time, and the second half started the way the first had; with the officials sending out for extra supplies of AA batteries. Pathetic...
But two minutes in Arsenal were back in front, with Gyokeres scoring his most important goal thus far in an Arsenal shirt; and in typical Gyokeres Sporting Lisbon-version style - collecting a clever pass into the middle by Timber, getting the ball out of his feet quickly, and hammering a shot past the despairing dive of Vicario. YEEEEESSSSS! A delightful goal; and one that followed the theme of the previous meeting as Tottenham once again left acres of space in front of their centre backs for forwards to exploit. Eze did that three times back in November, as I'm sure you will recall.
As I promised, another incident involving Gabriel and Muani. The Frenchman bundled home following Gray's deflected cross, which had looped high into the air. But he had placed two hands on Gabriel's back and whilst Gabi ought to have been stronger - and this isn't the first time this season that we've seen this - he chose to go down and look to buy a foul. It was really soft, but these are how the Laws are written these days. Wrongly, in my opinion - you see far worse at every single corner.
Those of us with longish memories will recall a similar piece of contact by Cedric on Son ending up as a penalty in a previous version of this fixture - and that was a really soft decision; so karma, eh... And Tottenham fans may well feel aggrieved that an Ekitike goal earlier this season was allowed to stand after he did far worse to Romero. This is the issue with officiating and VAR; the former is ridiculously inconsistent, and the latter is not fit for purpose.
From an Arsenal perspective, as the game moved on it was good to see them not sitting back and looking to protect their lead, but pushing for a third goal to kill off the opposition. A change in attitude? Perhaps. What we do know is that they've had a couple of what I can only assume were somewhat fractious team meetings since Wednesday evening, in which they would have told each other a few home truths about how to concentrate on the task in hand, and to see games out properly. Hopefully, we will see more of this as we get right into the business end of the season.
With Eze and Gyokeres both having their best games so far for Arsenal, it was apt that the two goals that did wrap the game up should be shared by those two. What a delight to see Eze finding space in unusual pockets of the pitch, and to see him actually being found in them. By dint of being there, it was he who seized on a ricochet to finally break Spurs hearts with his fifth goal against them this season. Remember when Spurs fans thought he was going to join them?... And time to fire an amazing statistic out at you; Eze has as many NLD goals now as both Thierry Henry and Robin Van Persie!
In injury time, Gyokeres completed the rout with an even more Gyokeres-type goal, holding off Gray in the left hand channel and slamming the ball past Vicario,. By this time, there were barely 10,000 home supporters in the ground. 'Stadiums are emptied, everywhere we go...'.
Moments before, Gary Neville on Sky commentary had given the POTM match award to the Swede, and whilst we were arguing that Eze deserved it more Gyokeres justified the decision with the goal. Just this once, Gary... just this once.
Shortly prior to that, we saw what may have been the save of the season from David Raya, who somehow threw himself back to claw an extremely clever and deft flick from the returning Richarlison off of the line. A brilliant and vital save, as Arsenal supporters would not have fancied 10 minutes with the score at 3-2. Especially after Wednesday...
The sight of Richarlison once more had me reaching for a pair of imaginary boxing gloves... he has the most punchable face in world football, and I defy you to name a more punchable one (although I may allow you Bruno Fernandes, actually).
And that was that. Tottenham duly vanquished, as we all in our hearts suspected they would be. And to choruses of the Gyokeres song, the Eze song, and inevitably of 'Is there a fire drill', 'Are you Tottenham in disguise?' and 'Sacked in the morning' the Arsenal players made their way gleefully over to the away fans to celebrate. The gap to City is back to 5 points, and Chelsea next week is massive - especially with City looking to have a number of winnable games against sides in the relegation zone coming up.
Just a few things to chuck at you before I go:
1. Quite how Bernardo Silva - for the second game in a row - has got away without a second yellow card (this time for a disgraceful challenge on Dan Burn) I do not know. Do referees think that he's 'not that kind of player? Because he is...
2. Why was no action taken against Rodri for his: 'the referees are against us' rant a few weeks ago? It was appalling, and should not have gone unpunished
3. The news that Gianluca Prestianni of Benfica has been provisionally banned by UEFA following the incident with Vinicius Jnr is most welcome. I just hope that the investigation doesn't drag on for too long. I hope that he gets what's coming to him
4. Make no mistake; Tottenham are under real threat from relegation. They're in worse form than any of the teams around them, and have to play them all in the next few weeks. If they don't get their act together, they will find themselves in deep doo doo. You have to laugh... as Paddy Power have been doing for the past 24 hours...
Interesting to hear Igot Tudor pronounce Arsenal as 'Probably the best team in the world' in his post-match interviews, by the way. What is interesting about it is that this is how Arsenal are regarded all over Europe, but not in England. There's more scrutiny, I guess, in this country. And I keep saying this - even with the season three quarters down; there is still more to come from this group. Arteta is still learning about their capabilities, and needs to get the right mix onto the field at the right time. Sure, there is less doom and gloom than there was in the week, but it was only Tottenham.
The truth is somewhere between the two extremes. Arsenal may well be the best team in Europe/the world, but we haven't seen them at their best. Yet. And they're not as bad as Wednesday made them look. Perhaps they've been given - and have now given themselves - the kick up the arse they probably needed to kick on. Let's hope so.
Anyhow, the good news is that the players get a week off now, before going into another long run of 'three games a week' weeks. A couple of days in Dubai wouldn't go amiss, I reckon, before Chelsea rock up (probably - and rightly - chastened by failing to beat Burnley this weekend). Another three points in what is Arsenal's second-most difficult remaining fixture would be extremely useful. With Chelsea having lost Fofana to yet another sending-off, this is certainly an opportunity to put them away.
Perhaps our latest Silver Member will be in attendance? Props to whoever sorted this, by the way...
COYG!
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