ARSENAL FIND THEIR
Defiant Mustafi sets the tone to answer
The derby was done, but Shkodran Mustafi hadn’t finished with his game face or the attitude that came with it. he bristled, he glowered, he was riled by the impertinence.
‘As always, Arsenal is dead, Arsenal is not coming back,’ he said. ‘It is the same all the time. We keep saying that we are always alive, that we always believe in ourselves, that we always try to give everything on the pitch. But it is you guys thinking it, just the same.
‘So there’s no point to talk now about what was said before and what people were thinking and who has the better team. It’s about what our team is feeling and when it comes to games like this you have to show character. We did it and you have to give our team credit. At the end of the game you know if you did your job, and I think we did our job.’
Indeed, they did. A quite marvellous job, too. Arsenal turned in a performance that made fools of those who spoke too bullishly of shifts of power in north London; who erased all traces of red shirts from their composite XIs; who predicted 90 minutes that could make Arsene Wenger’s future close to untenable. So everybody, pretty much.
There was consensus, prior to this game. Nobody was investing greatly in Arsenal; nobody thought them a match for Mauricio Pochettino’s darlings, conquerors of Real Madrid, saviours of england’s World Cup dream.
The reality was rather different. Arsenal were, as Mustafi intimated, quite superb. They have played better, of course, in technical terms. This game was a derby and they tend to the scrappy, as this often was. YeT
Arsenal haven’t done scrappy like this for a long time. Proper scrappy, in the physical sense. Arsenal beat Tottenham because they played with a startling level of intensity; because they tore into tackles, worked and pressed and snarled and fought and played ferociously on the counter-attack.
And, yes, in doing so they proved their critics wrong; but they also raised questions about why this doesn’t happen more often — in games like the one at Anfield in August, when Arsenal were close to supine, confronted by Liverpool with their dander up.
Mustafi was an unused substitute that day and one can only wonder how he could ever lose his place in this Arsenal side, when he plays as he did against Tottenham.
Quite simply, this was one of the outstanding defensive performances of the season, including not just a perfect header for the first goal but a superb marshalling of Arsenal’s back three.
Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal also stood out, while Mesut Ozil eclipsed Christian eriksen and Alexis Sanchez outshone Dele Alli. his work-rate was phenomenal, much like his skill to turn a loose cross from Alexandre Lacazette into the second goal shortly before half time.
Over the 90 minutes, no Tottenham players were worthy of selection in a composite XI. Mustafi, still irritated, found it astonishing his team-mates had been written off so prematurely.
‘If you want a judge a player, it’s not about what he’s done in the last three weeks,’ he continued. ‘If you look at what Mesut Ozil has achieved, you have to give him credit. It’s stupid to say he’s not good enough,. You have to look at what he has done in his career and respect that. You want everyone to leave, don’t you? The big players, Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil. But everyone in the team wants them to stay here because when we keep a clean sheet we have the quality and potential in front to always score.’
On days like this, presuming Pep Guardiola is content with his squad, it is hard to see where Sanchez and Ozil would be happier than Arsenal.
Pochettino had harsh words for referee Mike Dean over various decisions, but without doubt the better team won. And as life-affirming as this was for Arsenal, so it should be sobering for their would-be usurpers. Tottenham have now played five of the top seven teams and won once — at home to Liverpool. In those games last season they took eight points; in this campaign, it is four. The gap with the leaders, Manchester City, is already 11 points and 22 goals. The teams meet on December 16, but already there seemed an air of resignation from Tottenham goalkeeper hugo Lloris. ‘Before we think about City it’s important to stay in the top four,’ he said.
With respect, though, Pochettino insists he plays for the Premier League and Champions League, which makes results like this harder to take.
even that capital power shift no longer seems certain. This may have been Arsenal’s first derby victory in a league game since 2014, but Tottenham continue to struggle in the fixture away. They have won a single game at Arsenal, across all competitions, since May 11, 1993. Wenger’s record against his neighbours is quite magnificent.
‘The longer you are somewhere, the guiltier you feel about games like this if it doesn’t go well,’ he admitted. ‘That’s the negative of being a long time somewhere. You know what it means to people.’
Maybe his players should share a little of that guilt, too. For all Mustafi’s defiance, a simple fact remains: if they put in more shifts like this, nobody would be reading the last rites over Wenger’s Arsenal.