Lacazette gives Aubameyang lesson in timing to vindicate Arteta
Pierre-emerick Aubameyang turned up late and was dropped but Arsenal deservedly won the north London derby against a Tottenham team reduced to 10 men when Erik Lamela followed his wonder goal by later being sent off.
Lamela’s rabona will probably be the goal of the season but he then collected two yellow cards in five chaotic minutes as he went from the sublime to the ridiculous. His strike was not enough against Arsenal’s best performance of the campaign as they came from behind to severely dent Tottenham’s Champions League hopes. One-nil down, 2-1 up as the Arsenal fanzine says.
How Mikel Arteta needed this – especially after dropping his captain for disciplinary reasons he refused to elaborate on. The Arsenal manager knew the headlines he risked with that decision and the debate it would provoke whatever the result after the star striker reported late, apparently not for the first time.
Arteta will have felt further vindication that Aubameyang’s replacement, Alexandre Lacazette, was the man who scored the controversial winning penalty.
How Jose Mourinho did not need this. With a sense of momentum, after five wins and others faltering, Spurs blew the chance to push themselves strongly back in the race for a Champions League place. The head coach was left shaking his head. And more than once, with Spurs also having to cope with the loss of Son Heung-min to a first-half muscle injury that led to Lamela getting on to the pitch.
Spurs bitterly complained about the penalty award that settled the game, with Mourinho darkly questioning the intentions of referee Michael Oliver, but they were dominated by Arsenal. Harry Kane tried hard but lacked support, and was unlucky when, in the 90th minute, he hit a post with a superb free-kick. Gareth Bale and Tanguy Ndombele, meanwhile, were anonymous before they were substituted with Mourinho also complaining about “some important players hiding”.
Spurs could have opened a 10-point gap on Arsenal, who remain 10th, but are suddenly just four points behind. The nine league defeats they have suffered this season is the joint-most Mourinho has had in his managerial career.
To Dare is to Do. Spurs’ motto has not always been one they have lived up to in the past year but for Lamela to score an audacious rabona goal – and to nutmeg an opponent on the way – in such a fixture ticks all those boxes. And yet Spurs had been abject before he struck and that pattern did not change until, perversely, they were reduced to 10 men with Arsenal, despite an impressive display by David Luiz, left holding on in another demonstration of their own fragility.
The opening goal will live long in the memory. It came with Sergio Reguilon volleying Bale’s deep cross back into the Arsenal area for Lucas Moura to lay it off to Lamela.
The Argentine wrapped his left foot around his right and fired the ball through Thomas Partey’s legs. Goalkeeper Bernd Leno had no chance and the astonished looks of the players said it all. Reguilon simply held his head in a rendition of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
But it was another Norwegian who then intervened with Martin Odegaard scoring his first league goal since his loan move from Real Madrid. Lamela had struck a rabona
before for Spurs – in a Europa League tie almost seven years ago with the then manager Mauricio Pochettino shaking his head as felt it was too “showy”. Mourinho also shook his head – in disbelief, surely – at how bad his team had been.
It was not just a moment of brilliance but against the run of play. Arsenal had struck the goal frame beforehand with a wonderful dipping shot from 20 yards by the impressive Emile Smith Rowe that hit the crossbar. They came close again soon after with Cedric Soares running on to a cutback under pressure to crash a fierce shot against a post from the edge of the area.
Despite Lamela’s brilliance, it would have been a travesty if Arsenal had gone in at the interval behind. They threatened time and again down their left as Smith Rowe combined with Kieran Tierney and it was no surprise that they drew level from a move down that flank. Tierney easily beat Matt Doherty and pulled the ball across the penalty area, where it was met first time by Odegaard.
Still Hugo Lloris would probably have saved had the ball not deflected off Toby Alderweireld to wrong-foot the goalkeeper.
Mourinho’s anger continued. Off came Bale and then, after another misplaced pass, Ndombele, but, before his changes had an effect, Arsenal scored again.
Their own substitute, Nicolas Pepe, smartly picked out Lacazette but the forward had already sliced his shot wildly wide before he was caught by Davinson Sanchez. As Spurs protested, Oliver gave the spot-kick, the video assistant referee backed him, and Lacazette sent Lloris the wrong way.
Lamela’s first caution came after a late challenge. Fair enough. He plays on the edge but, stupidly, he then swung an arm and caught Tierney in the face. Oliver even shook his head as he showed yellow and then red. Maybe it was the sense of injustice, of things conspiring against them or of having nothing to lose, but Spurs finally threw themselves forward.
Kane and Moura led the charge. A Kane header was ruled out for offside and then he beat Leno with a powerful, angled free-kick with Sanchez reaching the rebound only for Gabriel to head the ball off the goal-line.
They kept pushing but Spurs left it late. Too late, it finally proved. A bit like Aubameyang.