Arsenal 4-1 Tottenham (Trossard 36’, Eze 41’, 46’, 76’ | Richarlison 55’)
EMIRATES – The north London derby used to be the best game of the season. Red Pepper vs Green Pepper on Ready Steady Cook had more competitive edge than this. Arsenal cantered to a victory over Tottenham Hotspur in which the outcome was not just predictable but blatantly bloody obvious.
Should you be among those Spurs fans minded to emigrate if Mikel Arteta’s side win the Premier League, it’s probably time to start looking at visas. Even without injured defensive talisman Gabriel, they are still impenetrable, imperious and – given Saturday’s results – impossible to see past for the big prize.
Not all their opponents will be as devoid of attacking ideas. Thomas Frank is now under serious pressure for the first time in his reign after an inexcusably shambolic performance.
It's a North London derby hat-trick for Ebere Eze!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) November 23, 2025pic.twitter.com/Hzr9hb5iaQ
He set up to frustrate with a back five and a double-pivot of Rodrigo Bentancur and Joao Palhinha that has faced criticism all season for its lack of ambition. Spurs ended with an xG (expected goals) of 0.07, Richarlison’s freak goal from the halfway line in the 55th minute their first attempt of any kind.
The seeds of this humiliation were sown not only when the team was named, but way back in August. Of course it had to be a hat-trick from Eberechi Eze that decided it, the man poised to join Spurs after weeks of talks with Crystal Palace before an 11th-hour U-turn that took him across north London. He might not be Sol Campbell but he’s about as close as it gets to a modern equivalent.
Eze was allowed to score three superb efforts. For his first, he wriggled through the traffic cones impersonating Tottenham’s defence. He then fizzed a second past Cristian Romero. The last found him in acres of space.
It is only a wonder Arsenal’s breakthrough took more than half an hour, Leandro Trossard latching onto Mikel Merino’s ball, spinning round and trickling a shot in off Micky van de Ven’s boot.
Tottenham’s summer has got to come under the spotlight. Xavi Simons was thrown on at half-time in a last attempt to inject some imagination; his pitiful lash wide summed it up. Arsenal, by contrast, did such good business with Eze and Piero Hincapie, Gabriel’s replacement, that they could blow Spurs out the water even without Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus or Martin Odegaard.
The tackles flying in from all sides could not put sufficient perfume on a one-sided derby. It was that way from the third minute, when Guglielmo Vicario had to produce a brilliant save to thwart Declan Rice. Michael Oliver, for his part, got through it relatively unscathed, this his first match officiating Arsenal in 10 months having controversially dismissed Myles Lewis-Skelly the last time.
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Oliver’s presence was never going to be decisive one way or the other. The stark difference between these teams is that even when Arsenal have defensive stand-ins and Merino as a No 9, you can see what they are trying to do. If something at Tottenham does not change fast, Frank is going to face real questions, which he will have to navigate without Romero, who earned a suspension and will miss their next league game against Fulham.
Spurs are perhaps getting an especially bad rap when they are but a microcosm of the way the Premier League has gone this season. Clean sheets are in. Set pieces are up. Worldies are down. Asking Kevin Danso to lump a long throw into the mixer again and again might not be “the Tottenham way” but he is far from the only one doing it.
Nobody is critiquing Arteta-ball anymore though. And come May, he won’t care one bit either way if Arsenal are crowned champions.
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