At the end of Match of the Day on Saturday night, Wayne Rooney sat in the studio watching footage of Pep Guardiola celebrating Manchester City’s win over Newcastle United with gusto and telling his players to have three days off and drink a lot of caipirinhas and daiquiris.
Rooney allowed himself a smile. He was embroiled in enough tight, tense title races to know exactly what Guardiola was doing. He knew that he was sending a message to Arsenal and his old friend Mikel Arteta ahead of the North London derby. Rooney knew what the message was. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got,’ he said.
Let’s see what you’ve got. Let’s see what you’re made of. Let’s see if you’ve got the cojones, as Troy Deeney would have put it. Let’s see if you’ve got the bottle, as almost every fan in English football seems to be saying. Let’s see if you can stop the wobble and show City and the rest that you are not just going to fade and die.
City’s win over Newcastle, coupled with Arsenal throwing away leads against Brentford and Wolves in their last two games, meant that Arsenal’s lead had been cut to two points when Arteta walked into the steepling Tottenham Hotspur Stadium two hours before kick-off. A smattering of Spurs fans was there to greet him. ‘Second again,’ they chanted. ‘Second again.’
Other things were in Arteta’s head. The statistic that Arsenal do not win when they have to follow City’s fixture, for one thing.
Then, as the teams prepared to walk out before kick-off, the Spurs announcer Paul Coyte, cranked up the atmosphere inside the stadium by goading Arsenal. ‘They are worried,’ he yelled into his microphone. ‘They are nervous as hell.’
Arsenal went five points clear at the top of the Premier League as they beat Tottenham 4-1
Eberechi Eze scored twice to add to his hat-trick in the reverse fixture back in November
The victory will quieten the noise around Arsenal after their midweek stumble at Wolves
It was all coming at them: Spurs’ new manager bounce, Igor Tudor prowling the touchline, winding up the supporters every time a home player thundered into a tackle, the statistic that Tudor had won the first game he had managed at each of his last five clubs.
Arsenal absorbed all of that. And if they really were ‘bottle-jobs’, then they would have crumbled. But instead, when they needed to do it most, they stood up. They showed us what they were made of. They showed us what they’ve got.
They weathered the atmosphere. They recovered from an uncharacteristic mistake by Declan Rice, they got stronger and stronger as the match went on.
They looked in a different class to the home team, which is the story that the league table tells. They went to the home of their enemy and got their biggest result of the season. They turned a victory into a rout.
Eberechi Eze, who rejected a move to Spurs in the summer, and scored a hat-trick in the reverse fixture between the two teams at The Emirates earlier this season, got two more on Sunday afternoon. Eze is a childhood Arsenal fan. That made the 4-1 victory even sweeter.
The result left Spurs only four points clear of the relegation zone. It left Arsenal five points clear of City at the top and served notice that they are not about to surrender their lead meekly.
City have a game in hand but those caipirinhas and those daiquiris may not taste quite so good when City’s players suck them back now.
Arsenal dominated the early stages. They stamped their authority on the game. Their superiority was total. Two minutes in, Bukayo Saka found Jurrien Timber on the overlap, Timber crossed to Viktor Gyokeres and his header was cleared off the line by Radu Dragusin.
Igor Tudor oversaw his first game in charge of Spurs since he came in to replace Thomas Frank
Two minutes after that, Saka ran on to a long kick out by David Raya and Guglielmo Vicario dashed out to try to head it clear.
He only headed it as far as Leandro Trossard. When Trossard shot from distance, Vicario was stranded and Dragusin, again, cleared off the line.
Four minutes after that, Gyokeres ran at Dragusin, cut outside him on to his right foot and whistled a shot inches wide of the far post. Then the match was halted because of a technical issue involving the officials’ communications.
It was a godsend for Spurs. Tudor handed out instructions furiously on the touchline. It felt like the equivalent of Angelo Dundee ripping Muhammad Ali’s gloves to buy him time against Sonny Liston.
But when the delay was over, Arsenal pressed on as they had before. Just after half an hour, they got the goal that had seemed inevitable.
So much of Arsenal’s threat had come down their right and this time, Saka escaped from Pape Matar Sarr and pulled the ball back for Eze. Eze flicked the ball up and volleyed it past Vicario.
Arsenal’s celebration felt like an explosion of relief as much as joy. But they were not able to savour their lead for long.
Two minutes after they had taken the lead, Declan Rice tried to dribble the ball out of defence and was dispossessed by Randal Kolo Muani.
Randal Kolo Muani levelled the scores at 1-1 when he pounced on a Declan Rice mistake
Viktor Gyokeres restored Arsenal’s lead early on in the second half with a superb finish
Kolo Muani equalised again but his goal was ruled out for a foul on Gabriel (bottom right)
Rice has been a colossus for Arsenal this season. Kolo Muani has been widely derided, even by his own fans. Now their roles switched.
Kolo Muani cut inside and lashed an unstoppable shot past Raya. Rice and his teammates looked stunned. The stadium was bedlam.
Arsenal did their best to shake off the setback. Saka nearly restored their lead eight minutes before half-time when he ran on to a through ball and prodded the ball towards goal. Spurs were grateful for a fine block from Vicario.
It was only a brief reprieve. Two minutes after half-time, Timber drove a low cross to the edge of the area, Gyokeres took a touch to control it and then lashed a brilliant drive past the despairing left hand of Vicario.
Spurs thought they had equalised a second time when Kolo Muani scored from close range but he was adjudged to have pushed Gabriel in the build-up.
Spurs were furious. Tudor was incandescent. He suggested, in no uncertain terms, that Gabriel had exaggerated the nature of the offence. He may have had a point.
But just after an hour, Arsenal scored the crucial third goal. A mistake by Dragusin led to a rapier attack by the visitors.
Gyokeres laid the ball off to Eze, Eze played in Saka, Saka’s shot bounced off Vicario and then the legs of Joao Palhinha and fell straight to Eze. It was an easy task for him to drill it over the line.
Gyokeres added even more gloss to the victory as he made it 4-1 late on with his second goal
There was one last alarm for Arsenal. Richarlison deflected a driven cross from the right past Raya but just as it appeared to be trickling over the line, Raya reacted.
He turned like lightning, flung himself backwards and clawed the ball away in the nick of time.
Deep in stoppage time, Gyokeres got his second of the match and his tenth of the season, holding off Archie Gray and bending his shot around Vicario.
It was another brilliant finish from a player who had been surrounded by swirling doubts before the match.
All the sound and the fury drained out of the home crowd. Now it was the Arsenal fans who could be heard.
They sang about how quiet it was at ‘The Lane’ and they were right. The noise around them and their title prospects has been quieted for now. Bottle-jobs? Not here, not when it mattered so much.
