Spurs 2 - 1 Arsenal

This defeat is painful in several ways. Losing to Spurs in any circumstance will always sting. Losing to them when they're competing with you for the top four spots gives the defeat that extra significance as far as the remainder of the season goes. Losing to them after being outplayed and out-battled all game is just *bleep* unacceptable.

Arsenal lost just about every battle there was to lose. Tactically, we went with the same approach as we did against City but unlike in that game we were never in control for one second. Even after we took the lead, Spurs were well on top. The approach today gave us neither good defensive solidity or a meaningful threat going forward, mostly because our ball retention was atrocious.

Ball retention is so important no matter what approach you use in a game. It enables you to get up the pitch, to allow players to rest and recover their shape. Today, whenever Arsenal had the ball they lost it in a matter of seconds. Spurs were so high up the pitch that their centre backs were standing in our half and that helped get close to our players and win the ball back before we could get anything going. When that happened, we were caught out of shape a lot and weren't given many opportunities to recover it.

And therein lies the main difference between this game and the City game. Our approach didn't change, but Spurs rendered in ineffective by being more aggressive than City. City allowed us to play out and gave us space to keep the ball. Spurs didn't give us a moments rest.

We didn't have an outlet, either. We attempted several long balls up to Giroud but every time it came to him he had to fend off three or four players. Welbeck had to spend more time tracking the runs of Rose than going forward. So that left Ozil on the other side and he just didn't have the pace to get in behind Walker.

It didn't help that Ramsey and Cazorla had poor games in the centre, either. Ramsey's passing and touch were awful all game, while Cazorla was unable to carry the ball in the way he did against City.

In the end, Arsenal couldn't pass their way around the pressing, couldn't dribble their way out of it and couldn't bypass it with long passing. Everything practically went to plan for Spurs and we had no answers for it at all. It's yet another game where we've struggled against this approach.

The goals we conceded were so poor from a defensive point of view. Nothing about them was particularly special. The first was a poorly defended set-piece in which Ospina should have done a lot better with the initial chance, and nobody reacted when the ball fell to Kane. The second we allowed Bentaleb way too much time to put the ball into the box. The defending all game was far from assured. We seemed to panic against Spurs' pressing and failed to clear our lines a number of times, while Ospina continually put us back into danger by continually failing to push the ball away from goal.

And just to compound things, the ref was as bad as we were, booking our players for their first "fouls" that were, in fact, dives from the Spurs players, and letting the Spurs players get away with crushing our player's ankles or scissoring them.

Just an awful game for us and I'm glad we've got a game on Tuesday so we can move on quickly. Our run-in is kinder than Spurs', so as long we recover quickly and try and get some sort of run going we should be fine.

Rough loss. I missed the first half-hour so I don't want to say too much. It appeared to me that the sit tight gameplan, which wasn't a horrible idea in theory, was just executed a bit too defensively and reactively. Our players looked a little off, while Spurs players grew into the game, and it seemed like their tenacity and commitment shook us a little bit. Just enough to keep pressure on our goal and get that comeback win.

Ugh.

Off day. Some questionable officiating didn't help.

Don't agree with Jay.

I think City pressed just as much as Spurs did today. We just did better dribbling or passing out of tough areas. The lads just weren't as focused and alert as they were against City.

You could have squeezed Kim Kardasians fat arse through the space the team gave for the cross that led to the second goal. Was screaming at the TV "SOMEBODY CLOSE HIM DOWN FOR F*CK SAKE" but, nope, they just sat back and let the cross come in

Deserved loss, crap officiating too. Our upcoming run of fixtures plus Spurs play Liverpool away next could help but unacceptable capitulation.

Spurs pressing was much better than City's, offered us no room to pass or dribble, couple that with the fact that they actually looked threatening when presented with chances whereas City had probably one real chance the whole game and that's where we lost it. Couldn't string together passes or maneuver out of tight spaces.

BT Sport trying to blame Ospina for the first goal

You might argue he could have done a bit more with it but nah, we shouldn't be allowing him to be put under that kind of pressure all game in the first place.

Nah there literally wasn't more he could do. The ball was heading in to the top corner. Frankly, I was surprised he even managed to get to it.

He's so short tho, that's what worries me.

Shots that Szczesny would easily handle he insteads parries away.

Ospina does have a bad habit of saving balls into dangerous areas... meaning that his hand isn't that firm so he doesn't push the ball away hard enough and it stays too close to him or he should just control them.

It's something he needs to work on.  It was his big Achilles heel at Nice.

We were so bad we didn't deserve to win. We put ourselves under unnecessary pressure by trying to be fancy and playing the ball from the back. In some situations we just needed to hoof the ball clear.

Both goals were avoidable, but all in all Tottenham created much more chances.

What a disappointing game. I didn't like how Ospina kicked every ball long and Spurs got possession and dominated the Midfield.

Losing to Spurs is a damaging defeat, we must bounce back.

I didn't want to post while I was pissed off. I am still pissed off.

Looking at United dropping points only pissed me off more, thinking of the fact that we could have been as high as 3rd and a mere 4 points off City, if we had managed crushing victory. Instead, we are 6th and a bloody point BEHIND scum.

I had this freckly ginger * * scum painfully screaming "av it ya plastics" repeatedly near my ear, literally frothing at the mouth, after their 2nd.

The right mix of alcohol and spuds in the venue made this one of the top 20 worst experiences of my life and that is all I have to say.

Also, on our GK situation, interesting to see Ospina has a history of this habit Sports - I was getting pretty frustrated with it tbh.

Anyone think hell will need to freeze over before any possibility of signing Petr Cech this summer?

Dissapointing performance and disappointing result.

We never turned up. The performance was more like away to Stoke/Swansea than Man City. Not having Alexis and Chamberlain on the wings was a blow but it's not like Ozil and Walcott are novices - they also combined for the first goal.

We can do much better, and when I look at the table and see us in 6th place with the quality we have, it's frustrating.

Both of Kane's goals were poor. Ospina and Ramsey seemed to be at fault for the first, whilst Koscielny completely lost Kane for the second and there was no pressure on Bentaleb crossing the ball.

Woeful defending.

We have to bounce back immediately, against Leicester tomorrow.

"Dissapointing performance and disappointing result."

Not much more you can say about the game. After watching the first 10 minutes I had already come to the conclusion that it was going to be a long match with the likelihood of success being low. To me it seemed that from a tactical point Wenger had us going into the match attempting not to loose. Again to me it seemed as if we went into the game with the plan of attempting to park the bus. Putting everyone into a defensive position with not much thought going into attacking. If you are going to try and park the bus then you are going to try and hit on the counter. If you have the slowest striker in the EPL in the center, no threat on one side and Ozil who is better at creating on the other side then the chance of hitting someone with a counter attack is almost nullified from the start. Giroud needs to start out deep into the attacking side of the pitch with others to draw defenders away from him. He can not receive the ball near midfield and do anything with it he just simply does not have any speed or ability to go past people not standing still. Welbeck does not scare anyone one in the league on his own and needs to have others going forward and the rest of our team stayed on our side of the pitch.
Trying not to loose or escaping with 1 point. If this was not the tactical decision that we went into the game with then we might have a much bigger problem. As a team we looked scared form the initial whistle and if we are scared to the spuds, then we have even bigger issues.

Just wanted to bump this because I never properly got to go So here she is:

Didn't get to see the game unfortunately but will try and find a replay. Should be cracking.

See you lot on St. Totteringham's day when you guys finish 4th again and Spurs finish outside of the top 4 and this loss doesn't really actually matter much in the grand scheme of things other than to bolster Kane's reputation as King of England.

You were above us in the league after the derby win for............wait for it..... 2 DAYS! So yeah. Looking forward to that DVD.