Tottenham Hotspur 0-1
Arsenal
Tomas Rosicky scored after just
73 seconds to give Arsenal a 1-0 victory over their North London rivals in the
final Premier League game of the weekend.
The goal came at the end of a
sweeping counter-attacking move beginning in their own half after an initial
bright start from Tottenham. The ball came to Alex Oxlade Chamberlain just
inside the Arsenal half and he played it wide to Rosicky who ran at the Spurs
defence. After an unintended and slightly fortuitous one-two with the 20
year-old, he unleashed a thunderous strike into the top corner past a helpless
Hugo Lloris. It was the fastest Arsenal goal against Tottenham in the Premier
League.
The afternoon could have got
much worse for Tottenham on 15 minutes when Oxlade-Chamberlain, who started the
game in a deeper role than he’s recently found himself, turned past talented
youngster Nabil Bentaleb and got one-on-one with the onrushing Lloris. Opting
to lob the Frenchman, Oxlade-Chamberlain mishit his shot to the extent it
almost became a cross for the supporting Lukas Podolski before it eventually
finished wide of the target.
Spurs, in particular the back
four, were looking nervous on the ball. On the other hand, Arsenal seemed happy
to let them have the ball and use their reserves of pace to counter attack.
This began to become dangerous for them as Spurs began to get a foothold in the
game. As the half began to become stale, good work from Andros Townsend down
the right hand side led to a ball across the six-yard box where Adebayor was
just unable to get the necessary scoring touch under pressure from Per
Mertesacker and pushed the ball wide.
The game became much more open
in the second half and Tottenham should have been level just three minutes
after the restart. Wojciech Szczęsny flapped at a cross from the right
hand side and Nacer Chadli found the ball at his feet. After skilfully rounding
one defender, he was unable to force the ball past Laurent Koscielny who
blocked superbly. Less than five minutes later, Emmanuel
Adebayor, one of Spurs’ better players against his former club, was allowed to
run 35 yards unopposed into the final third. After committing two defenders, he
laid the ball off to Townsend outside him who dragged his shot wide from 10
yards out.
Again, the
game seemed to lose a lot of its urgency mid-way through the half. The only
real chance of note came shortly after the hour mark when Adebayor was
presented with a delightful ball from Bentaleb, but headed wide under pressure
from Koscielny, who had one of his better games in a Gunners’ shirt.
There was a
lot of huff and puff from Spurs but they couldn’t create any further guilt-edge
chances and Arsenal were able to see out the victory with relative ease. The
full-time whistle signaled the first time Tottenham had drawn a blank against
Arsenal over both games in the league for 23 years.
Spurs can
take heart from their performance in this game, particularly after conceding
seven goals in their previous two games. However, Tim Sherwood’s men will need
to start taking their chances, no matter how small, if they’re going to overturn
a 3-1 deficit at Benfica on Thursday night or push on in the league for
European football next season.
No comments:
Post a Comment