THE STUFF OF CHAMPIONS

Spurs deliver a very Mourinho performance to dismiss Arsenal

As the final whistle blew, Jose Mourinho turned to face the stand and punched the air. He knew the importance of this. Not just victory over a hated rival, but the manner of the performance. It was not that of little ponies. This was thoroughbred level: dashing and bold, but also brave. This was the stuff of champions.

Tottenham did for Arsenal before half- time, then sat back and absorbed their pressure. Mikel Arteta’s team had an enormous amount of possession and never looked like scoring, Tottenham made a little count for a lot. It was a very Mourinho performance, clinical and smart, ruthless and resilient. Tottenham are not set up fashionably, but effectively. Mourinho is making the absolute best of what he has.

Take Harry Kane and Hueng-min son. Have they ever looked so dangerous, so unstoppable? They spent their Tottenham careers under Mauricio Pochettino playing catch-up in League campaigns, but Mourinho is a front-runner.

It is too early to escape the pack in a campaign that may yet end in a blanket finish, yet Tottenham are becoming the team to beat. Previous campaigns have collapsed under the pressure of the chase. What if they became the team to catch?

Certainly, this is some pace being set. It was a day of milestones in

North London, and not just the return of fans. There were 2,000 in the 17,000-capacity stand behind one goal, so not so much a white wall as a neatly- spaced picket fence — but they made a noise befitting Tottenham’s status this season. This win saw them return to the top of the table, although it is devilishly tight, but the same cannot be said of the rivalry in north London. As impressive as Tottenham have been, so Arsenal are failing and flailing.

The gap between these clubs has become a gulf and Arteta appears to have lost his greatest weapon in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. He had little involvement in areas that mattered and one real chance, a header steered over. Kane and son, by contrast, are living their best lives under this manager.

Kane is now the leading scorer of all time in north London derbies. This was his 11th goal, overtaking Emmanuel Adebayor and Bobby smith. It was also his 250th for clubs and country — 32 England, 202 Tottenham, nine Millwall, five Leyton Orient, two Leicester — as well as his 100th at home for spurs.

Now the partnership milestones. Kane and son combined for the 30th and 31st time in the Premier League, a record that places them behind only Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard as a modern partnership. It was also the eighth time Kane had made a goal for son this season, placing him one behind stan Collymore to Robbie Fowler for Liverpool and Mike Newell t o Alan shearer f or Blackburn, both in 1995-96.

That is the assist record, player to player, and Kane and son have the rest of the season to equal it. As they do the partnership record of 13 combinations held by shearer and Chris sutton in the same year.

Kane and son are just two short of that. This was also Kane’s 10th assist of the season, equalling the quickest time any player has reached double figures. The record had been held outright by Mesut Ozil in 2015-16. Whatever happened to him?

As for son, he took his goal total to 10 for the League season,

equalling the combined figure scored by, er, Arsenal, a statistic that borders on embarrassment for a club which once prided itself on beautiful attacking football.

Yet perhaps most worrying of all for Arsenal supporters is that their team did not even play that badly. Had Hugo Lloris not kept out Alexandre Lacazette’s second-half header they could have been back in the game.

Where Tottenham were efficient, however, Arsenal were wasteful — cross after cross, to no effect.

Tottenham, by contrast, are possibly the most potent counterattacking force in the league, and had the game won by half-time.

From there, they were barely interested in increasing their lead. Don’t believe Mourinho’s talk of a team that needs to believe, either. This was a supremely confident performance.

It was hardly an auspicious start for Arsenal, passing the ball into touch almost directly from kickoff. A week ago, it would not have felt as humiliating, but now fans are back, and they notice clangers like that — particularly from the feet of hated rivals. You can just imagine the noise that greeted this event.

And while Arsenal enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, played a confident high line and did their best to exude the aura of a team that was not intimidated, their vulnerability was obvious.

Arteta has done his best to improve this defence, to make them robust and resilient, but Tottenham simply have superior forwards to Arsenal’s back line. On the counter, they were deadly; and so it proved.

There were 13 minutes gone when Kane and Son found a welltrodden path to goal. Kane pounced on a ball out from defence and played a lovely pass that sent Son away. Son then left his man for dead before cutting inside to strike the most fabulous shot, curling out of the reach of Bernd Leno, a quite brilliant goal.

Tottenham were getting plenty of trade down their left flank against Hector Bellerin, and another move that came via that route ended with the magnificent Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg taking a break from the dirty work to try one from range.

Yet chances were limited and Arsenal may have thought they had got to half-time in reasonable shape, with just a goal in it, and seeing plenty of the ball. Son and Kane had other ideas.

Perhaps Arteta may have felt entitled to a little moan about this one, given that it changed the game and began with a break from Giovani Lo Celso. In the 41st minute, he was booked for a foul on Willian.

Then, three minutes later he committed a clumsy trip on Lacazette. A second yellow? A tad harsh, but it could have been given. Referee Martin Atkinson chose a stern lecture instead. And then two minutes later, almost inevitably, Lo Celso helped create Tottenham’s second.

It was his long- distance carry that had Arsenal on their heels before slipping the ball to Son on the left. Kane went on the run outside, and Son knew exactly where he would be. He played the pass, Kane smashed the ball into the roof of the net.

From there, job done, Tottenham reversed a sizable bus into the space Arsenal hoped to attack. Very Mourinho, very effective. The 2,000 did not seem to mind, though. They sang their new manager’s name with the gusto of many more. Of course they did. He’s doing exactly what it said on the tin.