It was the day of the North London derby and an opportunity for Arsenal to go top of the table for at least a couple of hours. The Gunners were on a 6-2 winning streak since their loss to Chelsea at the start of October while 7th-placed Tottenham desperately needed a win after a rocky start to the season. The two sides met at the Emirates Stadium as a crowd of 60,102 had gathered to find out the new champion of North London, until next February.
The player-to-watch for Tottenham was Gareth Bale, whose blitzkrieg tactics had paid off against European champions Inter Milan not once but twice and had scored the same number of times in their last Premier League outing against Blackburn Rovers. For Arsenal, it was Samir Nasri who had been very instrumental for his country in their midweek win over cross-channel-rivals England at Wembley.
The match began with Arsenal on the front foot; their quick passing flow and movement too much for the Spurs to handle who had to defend from the word go. And it wasn’t long before the Gunners got what they deserved. Fàbregas looked up to check Nasri’s run and floated a beautiful ball over the Tottenham defence who were caught unaware. The Frenchman’s first touch wasn’t that delicate and it allowed the Brazilian keeper to charge but in his hesitation, the ball ricocheted off him and Nasri, he spilled the ball and it scattered away. Nasri was quick to get to the ball and as he squeezed a shot from an insanely tight angle, he was helped by Assou-Ekotto’s bad positioning and the Gunners were one up in the derby in eight minutes.
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| Samir Nasri nets possible goal of the year and Arsenal's first |
Spurs were shocked and as more pressure piled up on them, the second goal didn’t seem too far. Fàbregas had the perfect opportunity to do just that but his shot was well too wide. Just before the half hour mark, a quick counter-attack was started by Cesc who then pushed the ball to Arshavin on the left. Owing to Hutton’s unwillingness to charge him down, he was then easily able to deliver a low ball into the box and Marouane Chamakh did enough to give Arsenal a two-nil lead over their local rivals.
Tottenham then looked to van der Vaart and Bale for some inspiration, as they looked to settle themselves. While the former was totally out of the pace of the match, giving away free kicks all over the pitch; the latter was always being marked sometimes to the extent of being rolling-roadblocked – a sure sign of Wenger’s pre-match preparations.
Second half saw Aaron Lennon being replaced by returning England forward Jermain Defoe and hence a change in formation for the visitors. And it didn’t take long for the change to pay off. Assou-Ekotto found Defoe far out who flicked the ball onto van der Vaart, who then fed the ball for the rushing Welsh and it took him two sweet touches to slot the ball into the bottom-corner of the net. Five minutes into the other half of the game and Tottenham were back in it.
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| Gareth Bale slotted the ball in the corner, his third goal in two games |
As the game progressed, Spurs started pressing more and more for an equaliser. It was Modrić with the first threat as his shot from 20 yards out just swerved over the crossbar. Arsenal had a decent free-kick opportunity at the other end but Nasri fired straight into the wall. Few minutes later, Tottenham were in the same position and as van der Vaart took the free-kick, Fàbregas and Chamakh – part of the Gunners’ wall, instead of jumping lifted their hands and the referee standing a couple of feet away straight away pointed to the spot. The Dutchman himself took the penalty and he placed the ball in the corner, sending Fabiański the wrong way.
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| Rafael and Gareth are ecstatic after the equaliser |
The game was back to square one – both teams now level on goals but Spurs definitely looked stronger. Both Wenger and Redknapp introduced new players, the Gunners making three changes in the span of eight minutes trying to steer the course of the game in their favour while Tottenham brought on Peter Crouch (who had scored with his first touch in England’s midweek loss - some fans silently praying that he would repeat his feat) for #9 Pavlyuchenko.
Rafael van der Vaart was to play another part in Tottenham’s comeback as he lofted his 85th-minute free kick beautifully into Arsenal’s 18-yard box and Younes Kaboul glanced the ball with the top of his head as Łukasz Fabiański was left with the job of picking up the ball from the back of his net for the third time this evening.
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| Arsène Wenger hides his face after his side let slip a two-goal lead |
Tottenham’s intelligent manager then introduced Wilson Palacios just after the goal to deny any comeback hopes for Wenger’s men. A 3-2 win in the end for Tottenham Hotspur which saw them climb up to 6th spot in the league and deny Arsenal any hopes of attaining the summit. Despite a not-so-good-performance-in-normal-play, Rafael van der Vaart was clearly Tottenham’s hero, scoring the equalising-penalty and providing the assists for the two other goals. But Harry Redknapp felt differently. According to him, former Arsenal captain William Gallas was “just amazing” and “led the team by example”. He felt that Gallas was “top drawer” and man of the match for him. On the other hand, Wenger was amazed at how they lost the match, adding that there was “a drop in concentration” and that they didn’t “maintain the focus nor the urgency for full 90 minutes”.
As they say, the match is made up of two halves and Tottenham made better use of theirs. An away win at Emirates means a lot to the Champions League newcomers as it was to be their first ever. The last time Spurs won away at Arsenal was before my birth – back in May 1993! Hence, an amazing comeback results in some very happy Spurs fans and disgruntled Gooners who will be looking for a revenge when the two Premier League clubs from the boroughs of Haringey and Islington meet at White Hart Lane, in end of February.
Highlights of the Arsenal v Tottenham match
In other news, Premier League defending champions Chelsea lost their second match in a row, this time to Birmingham FC – all thanks to a first-half goal from Lee Bowyer and keeper Ben Foster who made at least half a dozen saves. Unimpressive Manchester United defeated a nine-men Wigan Athletic, thanks to goals from Patrice Evra and Javier “Chicharito” Hernández. Liverpool destroyed bottom-of-the-table West Ham United with a 3-0 victory and Manchester City regained fourth position from Bolton after a 4-1 beating of Fulham which included an excellent display from captain Carlos Tévez and an amazing shot from right-back Pablo Zabaleta. In La Liga, ruthless FC Barcelona ripped apart extremely poor Almeria 8-0 and Real Madrid won comfortably over Athletic Bilbao. Both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo scored hat-tricks for their respective clubs. Rafael Benítez, who had been given 180 minutes to prove his worth at the Italian giants squandered half of it last night as Inter lost 1-2 to Chievo Verona.
Next weekend, we have Liverpool who travel to White Hart Lane and will be looking to build on their momentum and hoping to secure a win against resurgent Tottenham Hotspur and then it’s the El Clásico at Camp Nou on Monday evening, due to the Catalan elections taking place on Sunday.
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