Similar problem blights Arsenal in a big game It seem a long time ago, but this game started really well for Arsenal. The Gunners set out to win it from the off, and just four minutes in, a nervy Tottenham crowd appeared close to turning on Davinson Sanchez as he opted to pass back to Hugo Lloris due to the immaculate structuring of the Arsenal press in this 4-3-3 system.
Bukayo Saka had joy on the opposite side of the pitch, forcing Ben Davies to pick up an early yellow after winning the ball back from him on the edge of the Spurs penalty area. His success in behind Ryan Sessegnon prompted Martin Odegaard to signal to him to continue operating in a high starting position to cause the hosts more problems about 15 minutes into the game.
Tottenham sat deep, as is their nature in these big games under Antonio Conte, building up a brick wall in front of Lloris' goal. Still, Arsenal appeared prepared to patiently break it down with a chisel rather than panicking and attempting to sledgehammer through it. The best example of this came as Granit Xhaka found Takehiro Tomiyasu in the left inside channel, breaking the Spurs line, leading to a move that saw Gabriel Martinelli cut back to Odegaard from the edge of the box, only for the Norwegian to miscue his strike.
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Speaking after the game, Mikel Arteta seemed immensely frustrated that the decision to award a soft penalty for Cedric's bump on Heung-Min Son had ruined such a good start. "Ask the referee to come in front of the camera to explain his decision," the Spaniard told Sky after the game. "It's a shame because such a beautiful game was destroyed today."
In many ways, Arteta is right in that the momentum of the game did probably swing on that one call midway through the first half. However, if he's looking for what really cost Arsenal across the 90 minutes, then he may be better served looking internally for solutions.
Having conceded, the Gunners appeared to wilt under pressure as Spurs turned up the heat on a warm mid-May evening in North London. Not long after, Rob Holding allowed himself to be lured into a situation where he received a second yellow before Harry Kane headed home a second from a corner.
This continues a slightly worrying pattern of how Arsenal tend to react to moments of adversity in big games. The New Year's Day defeat to Manchester City started even better than Thursday night's loss but was derailed by Gabriel losing his head and getting sent off moments after Granit Xhaka had conceded a soft penalty. Similarly, in the home defeat to Liverpool, the Gunners reacted to Aaron Ramsdale's error to allow Diogo Jota's opening goal by conceding a second just eight minutes later.
This is a young Arsenal team, and they will hopefully use these testing situations as fuel to learn and develop. But if they qualify for the Champions League next season, then these kinds of big games are going to become a regular occurrence. Ensuring they don't continue to react poorly to moments where things go against them will be essential to turning those promising starts to matches into even more promising results.
Holding loses his head
From minute one it seemed pretty obvious that Rob Holding was on edge in this game. The look he shot Mohamed Elneny after the Egyptian briefly looked as though he might allow Harry Kane to pinch a ball on the halfway line said everything about how terrified the Arsenal centre back was of the Spurs counter.
Holding has been impressive enough in the past two games since coming into the side, but on both occasions, the game states have suited him somewhat. West Ham's more traditional tactics played straight into Holding's strengths, while Leeds' early red card meant there were limited times when he was caught in transition. On Thursday night, though, as Arsenal travelled to one of the best counter-attacking teams in the league, it was blatant how petrified Holding was of getting exposed.
The former Bolton man was still carrying the scars from last season's defeat at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where Spurs and Heung-Min Son, in particular, were able to transition
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