Premier League

TOTTENHAM 1 (Kolo Muani, 34)
ARSENAL 4 (Eze 32, 61, Gyokeres 47, 90+4)

ARSENAL started this north London derby victory feeling the pressure at the top as Manchester City find their stride: by the end of the 90 minutes, however, Mikel Arteta’s men were breathing easier after destroying their rivals courtesy of two goals each from Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyokeres.

Tottenham, with their interim manager Igor Tudor in the dugout for the first time, and having just 13 first-team players available, were left fuming when they felt Randal Kolo Muani had scored a perfectly good equaliser with the score at 2-1.

Replays showed Gabriel Magalhaes threw himself to the ground under minimal contact, and maybe the goal should have stood – but Arsenal’s quality was such that for all the what-if grumbling, the Premier League leaders walked away with it.

Speaking after the game, Tudor said he saw green shoots from a side yet to win a game in 2026. He said: “There is still a lot of work to do. There are too many problems for this kind of team, so we need to keep working from tomorrow, from Tuesday, more than we did until now.”

His counterpart Arteta was obviously the happier, commenting: “It feels like we showed what we are made of. After what happened against Wolves and losing two points with the last-kick of the game, it was tough.”

Tottenham hoped a new-manager bounce might help produce a result – but they were undone by a mix of individual errors and classy moments when it mattered.

Arsenal had all of the ball in the opening 15 minutes, and saw one Gyokeres shot fly just wide of Guglielmo Vicario’s far post and a William Saliba header from a corner also go the same way.

But it felt like perhaps Spurs had weathered the storm as they tried to break out of their own half. Then came Eze.

Pape Matar Sarr failed to deal with a Bukayo Saka run and the ball squirted up for Eze, and the Arsenal forward shot home from close range.

Spurs replied immediately: just a minute after the restart, Kolo Muani won the ball high up off a dawdling Declan Rice, and made inroads into the Arsenal box and then with great composure set himself and shot home low.

Arsenal regained the lead early in the second half when Gyokeres was given the freedom on N17 to pick his spot from the edge of the box. But Spurs, at least, did look threatening when they got forward.

The game would swing away from Spurs after gamesmanship by Gabriel. Archie Gray had done well to smuggle the ball forward and it dropped for Kolo Muani, who finished sharply. But Gabriel acrobatically hit the deck, with Kolo Muani being adjudged by referee Peter Bankes to have shoved him. The equaliser was chalked off.

Arsenal did not need to push themselves to make things safe: instead they allowed Tottenham to make the type of errors that have made them relegation candidates. It was 3-1 on 60 minutes when an awful defensive header from Radu Dragusin gave the ball away, and then Palhinha muddled his feet up instead of clearing it.

The ball eventually fell for Eze, who couldn’t really miss from inside the box. Gyokeres then made it feel a humiliation in added-time, leaving Tudor with no doubt about the scale of the task he has with 11 games left to play.

Tottenham: Vicario, Van de Ven, Dragusin, Palhinha (Tel, 82), Spence, Gray, Gallagher (Solanke, 62), Bissouma, Sarr, Simons, Kolo Muani (Richarlison, 67)
Substitutes not used: Austin, Souza, Olusesi, Williams-Barnett, Rowswell, Wilson

Arsenal: Raya, Timber (Mosquera, 56), Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie, Zubimendi, Rice, Eze (Odegaard, 77), Trossard (Martinelli, 76), Saka (Madueke, 90+1), Gyokeres
Substitutes not used: Arrizabalaga, Jesus, Norgaard, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly