Arsenal win at Tottenham despite missing stars: Mikel Arteta praises Gunners who weren’t ‘finding any excuses’

LONDON — For all the great moments that Mikel Arteta has delivered in his nearly five years in charge — and the new contract he signed this week promises plenty more — there has arguably not been a triumph quite like this. A meaningful win against a true rival earned at a time of profound difficulty. 

Make no mistake, a draw at Tottenham would have been an impressive result given the circumstances that Arsenal found themselves in before kickoff. Oleksandr Zinchenko’s late withdrawal with a calf issue meant that Mikel Arteta was without seven first team players, another in Gabriel Jesus deemed fit enough only for a bench that became a who’s who of the Arsenal academy as the numbers went into the 40s and 50s.

Their critics would contend that Arsenal’s rise to contention has coincided with an almighty helping of injury luck. That is perhaps overstated given that Jesus has struggled for fitness over the last year and a half while the likes of Jurrien Timber and Thomas Partey missed the vast majority of last season. Where Arteta has been fortunate is that those injuries have hit in positions he has just about been able to fade; Kai Havertz emerging as the scrapping, pressing and scoring center forward Jesus ought to be, Jorginho a steadying if slow-moving hand at the base of midfield.

On Sunday, all that good fortune dissipated. An entire starting midfield banjaxed. Mikel Merino, Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice is the exact mix of physicality and guile that Arsenal would want for their journey up the Seven Sisters Road. A tandem of Jorginho and Partey might have seen and done it all but every one of their 1,000-plus senior games seemed to weigh on their legs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

“We suffered because we had to adapt the plan because of the players that we had available,” said Arteta. “I loved it. The second we started to get that news, the team got hungrier and hungrier to play that game. It’s a big compliment to everybody at the club to behave in a certain way. It’s a tough week coming and instead of finding any excuses we did the opposite. We faced the challenge, played with courage and acknowledged the qualities we had to win the game.

“We have people that are hard and have thick skin. They love the game and we love winning. In order to love the game and win you have to do things that people call ugly. Enjoying those ugly things is a big compliment to this team right now.”

Arsenal couldn’t play the game they usually would. Indeed an engine room that would usually afford them control and dynamism was a serious problem. Too often Jorginho and Partey seemed intent on pressing forward into the final third, aping what the midfield would usually do in these situations. The difference is if the ball gets past Rice, he has the legs to get back. There was no little pathos in the sight of Jorginho at full pelt around the hour mark doing all he could to close the ground as Dejan Kulusevski hurtled down the right. He couldn’t even get close to getting back.

Arsenal’s problems were no less apparent on the ball. Without Odegaard there was an unsurprising drop off in creative terms, for most of the game the visitors’ best route to goal was Gabriel Martinelli’s bursts past Pedro Porro on the counter. He might have made more with one of them in the 19th minute, attempting a Thierry Henry-esque finish into the far post when Bukayo Saka was waiting for the cross. Of more concern were events nearer Raya’s goal. A team that can usually play its way around the most intense of presses frittered away possession in its own third all too frequently. Amid the garlands of praise Arteta rightly heaped on his side his most notable line might have been that his players had not done “the simple things” right “at all.”

If those mistakes are going to come, it helps to have the players Arsenal do. If any defender other than William Saliba had been hurtling towards him, Dominic Solanke would have had the time he took to get a shot away when Ben White gave up possession level with his own box. David Raya was tested more than once early on. The openings were there for Spurs at the outset and this really ought to feel like one frittered away by the hosts. Tottenham, who have lost more games to Arsenal at their new home than they have won at the Emirates Stadium, are not going to get many better opportunities against their great rival in the near future.

No wonder Ange Postecoglu was bemoaning his side’s lack of “conviction” in the final third. He bristled at yet more questions over Tottenham’s set piece record — “For some reason, people think I don’t care about set pieces, it’s a narrative that can keep going,” he said. Nut the real opprobrium ought to have been directed at how Spurs had gone about their pursuit of parity.

The best set piece team in England will get an opening at least once, Gabriel showing enough muscularity to plough through Cristian Romero and meet Saka’s well-placed cross. That will happen. What shouldn’t is Spurs losing any sense of how they might prise apart a low block, no matter whether it is populated by some of the best individual defenders in the Premier League.

Gabriel and Saliba were hardly even strained, let alone Raya. Tottenham attempted 13 crosses after the opener, only one found a white shirt. Of a paltry six shots only one came from within the box. The expected goals value of those attempts: 0.01, 0.04, 0.04, 0.02, 0.02 and 0.04. Spurs needed to assert themselves on their opponent. They won just 42 percent of their duels. With the exception of the sparky Wilson Odobert, no one took control of the game.

Arsenal, meanwhile, looked altogether more at ease in what Arteta acknowledged was a reluctant deep block. Jorginho and Partey wouldn’t have to worry about the space behind them. Gabriel and Saliba were attacking that. Nor indeed was there much concern ahead of them.

This was a game typified in its final seconds, an exasperated home crowd pleading with Heung-min Son to shoot. The 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri was the first to hurtle towards Tottenham’s No. 7, who shaped to shoot and quickly dummied. All that did was take him into the path of another black shirt. Then another. More would have come if they had been required.

Last time Arteta came here he was pleading to a higher power for his players to cling on to their lead. This time he required no divine intervention. “They threw everything at it,” Arteta said of Tottenham last time out and this. “They tried today but I think we looked more composed, better organized and gave very, very little away.”

That, then, is as impressive a stride as any made under Arteta. Not so long ago it was progress enough to not get brushed away in their toughest road matches. It is only recently that the best versions of Arsenal have looked capable of navigating these games. If this can be replicated, though, then Arteta is onto something special indeed. A team that can negotiate its toughest tests without multiple stars? That sounds like a true blue, inner-circle contender.

Don’t miss CBS Sports Golazo Network’s Morning Footy, now in podcast form! Our crew brings you all the news, views, highlights and laughs you need to follow the Beautiful Game in every corner of the globe, every Monday-Friday all year long.