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North London Derby - The Big Preview

It seems 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 play 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, but 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.

Mikel Arteta provides worrying update on Gabriel amid Rob Holding red card appeal decision

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