OTB Football
“Spurs capitulated in the end…” | Spurs 1-4 Arsenal | The Sunday Kickback | OFF THE BALL
22 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Well, we're just here at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after what has been a really convincing win by Arsenal. The second time they've won the North London derby this season by four goals to one. Two from Eberichieze and two from Victor Jacquez.
Brian, I think right from the off and maybe after the equaliser had gone in for Spurs, maybe a bit of good luck with that, but you really felt that Arsenal were on top for most of this game today.
Oh, well, for all of the games, Stephen. I mean, Spurs scored a goal, having just conceded, but it was out of the blue. We weren't expecting them to find a goal. Declan Roy's caught in possession by Mouani down close to the end line, down near the touchline. Mouani, brilliant piece of play. But other than that, Spurs were ready to try a couple of little half things in the second half, right up.
pulling off the line at 3-1 from behind them would be really well but if you look at the number of opportunities that Arsenal made in the match they were almost too numerous to mention and there were so many last-ditch tackles by Spurs defenders that were cheered to the rafters by their fans it had to be said while the score was still at 0-0 as it was until late in the 30s minutes before
Arsene got the first goal. And then the second half, there was still desperation stuff early in the second half before Arsene got the second goal. Brilliant goal by Joachim Reus. I mean, just before it, Mouani had hoofed the ball off the toe of Trossard on the edge of the box. It looked like Burs had escaped from that, but straight away Timber fires the ball in at Joachim Reus.
He's able to take it on his own in the day and smack it into the net. And after that, I just felt, I don't think Spurs are going to get a second goal back here. It was an excellent performance by Arsenal today. They were dominant in midfield. They were superb, I thought, in the attacking positions and the movement and their ability to find space, get the ball, to hound Spurs in possession.
And they were dominant at the back as well. I mean, so few chances for Spurs. Who could say play well for Spurs? Mane got a great goal. battled well, competed well. But after that, it was all last-ditch defensive stuff for you.
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Chapter 2: What were the key moments in the Spurs vs Arsenal match?
For Arsenal, after that draw against Wolves, so much questions over their mentality, whether they had the fight in them. And especially after they watched Man City last night putting in such a vivacious kind of performance in their win against Newcastle. They would have been a little bit worried coming into this game today.
But to respond like this with such a convincing win against your North London rivals, such a big game. And even despite the fact that Declan Rice made that mistake leading up to the Colmawanny goal, Arteta couldn't have asked for a better response for this. And I'd say he'd be feeling a lot more confident now going into that Chelsea game.
And they will be as a team feeling more confident. I mean, they've been tested over the last few years, feeling no great joy in finishing second three years in a row. But that's the journey and you learn along the way and you... He learned a big game, the character of the players improves, the manager improves in terms of his selection and the squad he selects and the recruitment side of it.
And how he's handled Eze is actually quite interesting. The general feeling was that Eze hasn't delivered, he's an expensive purchase. But it was only in his first year at Arsenal, he'd be playing a much more disciplined side.
structured team in Arsenal than he was at Crystal Palace where he was allowed to play with a bit of freedom and he was the flair player given kind of that authority to do his own thing create goals, make goals as he did for them in Arsenal you'd have a specific role with specific structures
You know, there's repeated movements, there's training ground movements, repeated, repeated, that come into play in the game. And it's obviously taken him time to adapt, but now we've seen him twice against Spurs, he's scored five goals.
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Chapter 3: How did Arsenal dominate the North London derby?
I thought he was, you know, he was superb at times today, as so many of the front players were. Over time, you build up resilience to the humps and hollows you find along the way when you're trying to find a way to win championships. Maybe Arsenal have found that. I mean, they had that.
The recent little spell where they did two draws, Langdon Forest and Liverpool, and then they lost to Manchester United, which was two points. I think it was a three-game period. And then they lost and people say, oh, they're going to struggle. Then they go to Leeds and win 4-0.
We saw what they've done today, having had that kind of misery of the two late goals against Walsh, you know, and they've come out with so vibrant and so... On top of it today, you know, with little rest, Tottenham have had no match. I know it's kind of the sports team, it's a long way short of what the XI that Tottenham should be selecting.
But still, the sports players didn't have any match during the week. A lot of Arsenal players played the full game. There's freshness in the team as they come back into the team. So I could go back out onto the wing, you know, and the truss are coming back into the side on the left-hand side. They play very, very well. It's a great reply to that criticism, but also for themselves to feel.
Now we show them, the people who are. But, you know, there's a long way to go. There's still 11, 12 games to go. And there's a lot of points to be played for.
Yeah, they might have taken Guardiola's, Daiquiri's and Caprini's line maybe as motivation last night, as if to say he was laughing at them. Here's another one, Brian, just quickly on Spurs. Colin Moane, probably the only slight highlight for them, or Bryce Burstyn from today's game, and then next week they play Fulham, who scored three goals away to Sunderland. That's a massive concern.
Yeah, but we talked with Moane, we talked about what they should be playing for. Tudor before at Juventus and did very well for him at the end of last season, scored some very important goals. He played well today and scored a good goal. But outside of that, you have to expect the players to fight in the debut match for Arsenal.
And they did fight, but ultimately they were just exposed and not good enough for them. They capitulated in the end and it ends up 4-1. Is it harsh on them? I don't think so because I think Garson made so many chances all through the game. But is there anything for him to manage at the walk? Of course there is. There's some good players there and some good players that aren't fit enough to play.
where they're going to play any part between now and the end of the season. It's hard to know. Leaving out Solonke today was an interesting one. He's not played a lot of football this year, Solonke. Him and Mouane played together. I think his preferred system is three at the back, four, two and a one.
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