English Premier League Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal: The colour of North London was red on Sunday when visitors Arsenal snatched their third successive away victory against Tottenham Hotspur for the first time in the history of premier league. Though centre back Gabriel’s second half strike made all the difference, it was a closely fought contest between these two old arch rivals.
Spurs made several changes in their starting line-up after the defeat at Newcastle a fortnight ago with Rodrigo Bentancur, Brennan Johnson and new signing Dominic Solanke who arrived from Bournemouth this summer, all in the first eleven.
Meanwhile, Arsenal were without their two key midfielders Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard due to suspension and injury respectively.
The hosts displayed attacking football from the very beginning as Dejan Kulusevski was denied by David Raya who pulled off a great save after the Swedish forward made himself some space inside the box and unleashed a quick low drive to the bottom left corner in the 6th minute.
Then in the 18th minute, Spurs goalie Guglielmo Vicario forced to make a stunning save to disappoint Kai Havertz when the German rose above the opponent’s defence and headed a precise cross towards the bottom left corner. For the rest of the first half, the hosts dominated possession and created more chances through Solanke, Son and Johnson while Raya was the busier of the two goalkeepers. Referee Jared Gillett was also quite busy in the first half as he booked 5 Spurs players and 1 Arsenal player during the said period.
The second half began with the same intensity with neither of the managers opting for any change of personnel. In the 64th minute, Arsenal drew the first blood when Bukayo Saka curled an excellent ball from the corner into the six yard box finding Gabriel who jumped the highest and coolly planted a bullet header into the roof of the net.
Subsequent attacking substitutions though created pressure on the Arsenal defence but the gunners held on. Arsenal also introduced forwards Gabriel Jesus and new loan signing Raheem Sterling in the 80th minute however, that didn’t make any significant impact. Kulusevski came close to an equaliser in the dying moments when his left footed strike was inches away from the crossbar.
After second successive defeat in four games this season, Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham is 13th in the table right now, while Arsenal is placed 2nd behind league leaders Manchester City whom the gunners will be facing next Sunday at the Etihad Stadium.
3 comments
Even the finer details of the match has been narrated in a pictorial manner ۔Wish to see such nice posts in future ۔
Well description ❤️
Your write ups are so vivid, it almost feels as if one is watching the game instead of reading about it.