Tottenham Hotspur displayed their resilience by twice coming from behind to earn a well-fought point in the thrilling north London derby against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
In a relentless contest, Arsenal seized the initiative 26 minutes in, capitalizing on a deflection off Spurs defender Cristian Romero from Bukayo Saka’s shot, which found the back of the net.
rsenal’s manager, Mikel Arteta, made a pivotal choice by entrusting David Raya with goalkeeping duties instead of Aaron Ramsdale. Raya justified this decision with two outstanding saves, denying Brennan Johnson’s attempts as Spurs relentlessly pursued an equalizer.
However, Raya’s fortune took a downturn just three minutes before halftime when he could only parry away a cross, allowing Spurs to sustain their attack. The sequence culminated with James Maddison delivering a precise cross to Son Heung-min, who calmly slotted home to level the score.
Arsenal regained their lead in the 54th minute after Romero was penalized for a handball following a VAR intervention, with Saka converting from the penalty spot.
Undeterred, Tottenham, exemplifying their new positive approach under manager Ange Postecoglou in his inaugural north London derby, swiftly restored parity. Jorginho lost possession to Maddison, who then orchestrated a play that concluded with Son calmly finishing for the equalizer.
“We feel like we lost two points,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta told Sky Sports after the match.
“It’s true there was a lot of change in the dominance of the game, but especially when we had more control and more dominance in the game, and we score the goal, they score straight away.
“We started quite good, we scored the goal, but straight away we concede. So, emotionally, that was a difficult one to take. I thought we struggled for a period of 10 or 15 minutes later, we lacked a lot of composure with the ball and we made it a basketball game.
“But I think in the end we pushed, pushed and pushed, but couldn’t get the win. The hardest thing to do is put the ball in the net. We’ve done it twice but I think we conceded two really poor goals. At this level, they’re going to punish you because they’ve got top players.
“Obviously we are disappointed with the way we conceded the goals but of course this is football and you have to live with that.”