TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — Sunday’s north London derby was described in one particular media outlet this week as the toughest test of Mikel Arteta’s managerial career, which half works as a premise if you exclude the existence of Manchester City as a title rival. Losing one midfielder to suspension and another injury doth not a crisis make. Not when you have balls of steel like this Arsenal team.
There were pre-match concerns, as derby day naturally forces in through your pores while you’re desperately trying to forget it’s coming. Declan Rice has been the firefighter of this midfield and Martin Odegaard the firestarter. Mikel Merino would be the first-choice replacement for both and didn’t even get onto the pitch before getting injured.
But then this team has an extraordinary backbone. If they crumbled a little under the pressure of a title race two years ago it made them stronger. Whoever plays, this is a team.
Jorginho and Thomas Partey may not be Arteta’s ideal pairing, but they were plenty good enough when faced with Rodrigo Bentancur and the ailing James Maddison, drifting from side to side but never leaving a footprint.
Tottenham started the brighter, as we expected given the home advantage and need to make a statement. This is when you see the Arsenal ship roll with the waves but always stay upright. Jurrien Timber was magnificent as a defensive left-back. William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes are the best central defensive partnership in the country because each seems to read the other’s run like an old school strike partnership might.
It worked because Arsenal were solid, but also because Spurs are deeply, unforgivably infuriating. Ange Postecoglou’s team have this ludicrous tendency to either shoot from 25 or 30 yards out, an emphatically low-value chance, or to try and walk it into the six-yard box before allowing themselves to have another go.
That gives this Arsenal team oxygen. As the first half progressed they began to sense that Tottenham might run out of puff before long, and thus they could move 15 yards up the pitch and apply serious pressure to those intent on playing out from the back.
Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli were a wall of energy. Kai Havertz dropped in as an intense presser for hire alongside whoever put up their hands first.
Arsenal did not create clear chances from open play; it was not that sort of game. Havertz had a header from a cross and Saka played a few interesting, inswinging crosses that threatened danger but never caused it. Perhaps Arteta had even been a little too circumspect, his team unable to fully switch through the gears and purr.
But Arteta has his not-so-secret trick and his now famous tactical henchman. In 2020-21, the season before Nicolas Jover was given a role at Arsenal, they scored six goals from attacking set pieces (penalties are not counted as set-piece goals). By that measure, Arsenal ranked 18th in the Premier League. It was a miserable record for a team with ambitions of grandeur.
Jover’s impact has been extraordinary since. Last season, Arsenal scored 22 goals from attacking corners and free-kicks, the most in the Premier League. Jover’s role as the architect of those situations, attacking and defender, has been lauded by Arteta. It is too much to conclude that they have made the difference, but the difference is stark.
Because when all else fails, Arsenal can always knock you out with that punch. Saka and Martinelli scamper down the wings not just to enable them to create chances for those in the middle, but because winning a corner is worth more to them than any other club in the division. Sometimes it’s Saliba; this time it was Gabriel. They are the kings of both boxes.
To us amateurs, set-specialism may involve a series of wavy running lines and experimental positioning. Sometimes you just gotta get physical. The manner in which Arsenal players held their position to bar Guglielmo Vicario from making a run and leap was exceptional. Cristian Romero switched off for a second and Gabriel was two feet above him by the time he’d realised.
All that’s left is for England’s most wonderful left foot to swing the ball in – Arsenal always do inswingers now – and one of the centre-backs to steal a march. Sometimes they will score. Other times they will cause enough mischief for someone else to or simply attract enough attention for holes to appear elsewhere.
The gap between Arsenal and Tottenham was not chasmic on Sunday; it misses the point to claim so. The gap was small and the margins are fine, as is typically so. In those conditions, you back the team who look well-coached, mentally prepared to fight and ready to go through their entire playbook in search of the answer. As such, north London is theirs.
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