Three things we learned from Tottenham Hotspur 2-3 Arsenal – by Alan Alger

Squad still showing a mix of maturity and youthful exuberance…

I love observing this squad and their behaviour during matches. A real highlight of this season is Martin Odegaard growing into his role as Arsenal captain. Midway through this campaign I’ll admit that I did question his suitability to take this important role to the next level. Suggesting Declan Rice as more of a motivator.

Odegaard is different and we have to accept that. Shortly after the Luton match at Kenilworth Road he turned 25 and despite our rocky Christmas patch he has now added a little bit of steel to his game to accompany his other more obvious qualities.

There was a point towards the end of the Chelsea match where Fabio Vieira burst through and shot towards goal and the arm around his shoulder from Odegaard afterwards – part consoling, part geeing up – was perfect captaincy.

What I loved about the goal celebrations at Tottenham in the first half was that Odegaard brought a degree of calming down the troops while also reflecting that we hadn’t been playing well. It was very mature to bring the others down at that point and focus.

The same for someone like Ben White, who one minute is playfully unstrapping the keeper’s gloves and the next minute pulling a stern face in the post-goal huddle knowing that we should be doing much better.

Despite wobbles in the second half the exuberance of the celebration in that away corner at the end as the players came over showed this squad mostly has the mix right.

As then revealed after the game by Kai Havertz that they wind down with Mario Kart competitions among the squad, which is just heartwarming!

Derby football is different…

Gary Neville, despite favouring Tottenham throughout his co-commentary on Sky, did say something very interesting. The former Manchester United man said “this is the Derby that always delivers”.

Action, goals and controversy go hand in hand with this fixture, especially when we are the away side. The late season 21/22 showdown for a Champions League place was probably lost in the first 30 minutes due to bad decisions of both our players and the officials.

The margins were as tight on Sunday. Despite the overwhelming half-time scoreline we hadn’t played well and were possibly lucky that a few 50/50 officiating calls landed on our side. It really is as simple as that sometimes. The officials this season don’t seem corrupt – they just seem a little lacking in quality. Sometimes it goes for you, sometimes it goes against you. We were due the rub of the green.

That said, let’s not take away the individual quality of the second goal which was an immense pass from Havertz and outstanding control from Saka with a great finish too. That end to end play just doesn’t really happen in our more controlled Premier League matches.

When you drill deeper into some of the stats from the game you get a clear impression of just how random and dare I say lucky we had been. It was our second lowest possession figure of the season – after City away. It was also our lowest expected goals (xG) figure of any game this season too. While Spurs created more against us than any other game we’ve played this season.

Sometimes when you’re clinical and get the breaks in a heated game but there is a worry going into the weekend…

Defensive numbers ahead of Bournemouth a cause for concern…

Beating Chelsea 5-0 and then winning 3-2 at Tottenham is a stunning six days at the office from Mikel Arteta’s team, although a couple of underlying numbers pose a little bit of concern ahead of Bournemouth’s visit to the Emirates on Saturday.

It might seem entirely unbelievable considering the dominance and winning 8-2 in total over those two games, but they rank as our two worst defensive performances of the season in terms of giving up chances to the opposition. Chelsea 34th out of 35 and Tottenham 35th.

Our two worst attacking performances of the season have occurred across two of the last three games too. Wolves away registering 33rd out of 35 and Tottenham again 35th.

Now I’m also a firm believer that the result is what matters at this stage of the season but we are going to have to massively improve both metrics to see out the season without a slip – starting with a very, very tricky game this weekend.

Bournemouth are in incredible form at the moment and will be an entirely different test than the lacklustre team we played away earlier in the season.

The Cherries are in the equivalent of Champions League places in the current 10-game form table for the division. Just behind us and City. It should be noted that they caught a lot of teams at the right time during that run, but nonetheless it is a warning that they could be a real threat.

Let’s use our midweek rest wisely, take the game seriously and put the ball in City’s court again!