What went wrong against Tottenham
After a long battle on Sunday afternoon, Arsenal walks away from this season’s first London Derby sharing the points. Mikel Arteta and his side left disappointed that we dropped two points but after an intense match at The Emirates, some might say we were lucky to get the draw.
Arsenal started the match on the front foot, pressing the Tottenham players hard whenever they had the ball, forcing interceptions and for at least the first half, completely controlled the game. We kept sitting back a bit, letting Tottenham pass the ball around until we forced mistakes and pounced. Arsenal had plenty of chances in the first half but just weren’t clinical enough.
Tottenham kept inviting the press and Arsenal were equal to it. Saka was almost unstoppable in the first half with Arsenal primarily focusing on getting the ball into his feet. After 25 minutes Saka dropped his shoulder and fired the ball into the goal, picking up a deflection on the way from Romero, Arsenal were one to the good.
Just before half time, Son equalized, after two great saves from David Raya, Arsenal couldn’t get the ball clear out of their area, with the ball landing at the feet of James Maddison who played the ball right to the feet of Son and into the net. A disappointing end to a good half and putting us level walking into the tunnels.
Arteta made two changes at half time, Declan Rice and Fabio Vieira came off for Jorginho and Kai Havertz. Rice coming off with complaints of a back problem. It didn’t take long for Arsenal to get back in front when Saka stepped up from the spot and fired the ball down the centre of the goal to put us 2-1 up, after Ben White fired a shot that hit Romero’s hand in the box and VAR awarded a penalty.
Unfortunately, it only took a minute and 38 seconds for Tottenham to get one back and level up the scores, after a horrible mistake from Jorginho in the middle of the pitch, who looked to just switch off for a second and Tottenham instantly replied with another goal from Son.
The game ended 2-2 and points were shared. Arsenal looking tired and out of touch in the second half, continuing both Arsenal and Tottenham’s unbeaten runs this season. After a promising first half, Arsenal looked to be outplayed in the second. With such a quick turn around from the Champions league, I think tiredness definitely played a part in our drop off in quality in the second half.
A tough one to swallow but we are still unbeaten and will now turn our focus to Brentford, who we play in the Carabao Cup this week.
What’s your thoughts on the game Gooners? Could we have done more?
Daisy Mae
———————————————
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
