London derby for the Gunners! Arsenal hold on to the lead and can still dream of the title

Tottenham, after a week off, entered the Premier League with a London derby against Arsenal. Unfortunately for the home side, Arsenal were the happier team in the end and throughout the match, winning 3:2.

In the 14th minute, Arsenal’s pressing drove the home defence into a corner. Bukayo Saka curled a dangerous ball to the front post where Pierre-Emile Højbjerg scored an unlucky own goal. The visitors took the lead right from the start.

In the 22nd minute, the home side managed to equalise for a few minutes. Pedro Porro fired dangerously from outside the box, the ball bounced off the players and floated onto the foot of Micky van de Ven.

The Dutch stopper sent the ball into the net, unfortunately for the whole of Tottenham, he was in a very close offside position and the goal was disallowed.

A few minutes later there was another controversial situation. Dejan Kulusevski tripped over Takehir Tomiyas’ foot in the opponents’ penalty area and went down. The referees didn’t seem to address the situation at all, although they would almost certainly have defended the penalty.

In addition, Arsenal increased their lead to 2:0 from the ensuing counter-attack. Kai Havertz sent a beautiful long ball to Saku, who as usual guided the ball on his left foot and with a shot to the back post made the home fans sad for the second time.

39. a minute in and another Arsenal corner kick led to another goal. Declan Rice sent a centre to the edge of the box where Havertz climbed highest amongst the players and with a precise header he beat the helpless Guglielmo Vicario for the third time.

In the second half, Arsenal managed to hold on for the win

Arsenal had a better start to the second half. In the 49th minute, Tomiyasu had a great chance and headed home a free kick. However, the Japanese defender did not set his sights perfectly, sending the ball just over the top of the bar.

Tottenham then threatened, but Cristian Gabriel Romero’s volley flew just over the bar. In the 52nd minute, Kulusevski went down again, and even then it wasn’t a penalty. A minute later, goalkeeper Vicario put on a show, disposing of a hard shot by Saka.

Then in the 64th minute, David Raya made the game more dramatic with a misplay. The Arsenal goalkeeper’s pass from the edge of the area found only the home side’s Cristian Romero, who acted like an experienced striker and scored Tottenham’s opening goal.

Heung-Min Son closed the scoring from a penalty kick with three minutes remaining. Rice kicked one of the home players quite unnecessarily and the referee had no choice but to award a penalty. Despite an increased effort from the home side at the end, Arsenal took all 3 points.

Source: Premier League