Arsenal survive Tottenham fightback to boost Premier League title charge football news

Arsenal recorded an impressive 3-2 win over arch-rivals Tottenham in the north London derby to maintain their hold on top spot in the Premier League on Sunday. Seeking to stay one step ahead of Manchester City in the title race, Mikel Arteta’s side silenced the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium by scoring three goals before half-time. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s own goal put Arsenal ahead, before goals from Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz put Arsenal in complete control. Cristian Romero and Son Heung-min struck for Tottenham after the interval to set up a nervy finish, but Arsenal stayed on their toes.

Arsenal are four points ahead of second-placed City, who face struggling Nottingham Forest on Sunday in the first of two matches against the Gunners.

If City win their last five matches, they will win an unprecedented fourth consecutive English title.

But Arsenal are pulling out all the stops to make Pep Guardiola’s side sweat as they try to make amends for their eight-point lead in last season’s title race.

“I was praying (at the end),” Arteta said. “So many Spurs balls came into our box. It was a very emotional game in a great atmosphere against a very good team.”

After the disappointment of a narrow home defeat against Aston Villa and a Champions League quarter-final exit at the hands of Bayern Munich, the Gunners have bounced back impressively.

Knowing they had little margin for error with City chasing them, Arteta called on his players to show their hunger for success and they responded to his challenge.

Tuesday’s 5-0 thrashing of old rivals Chelsea was merely an appetizer before the main course Arsenal served up to their 3,000 enthusiastic fans crammed into a corner of the stadium.

Arsenal famously won the league twice at Tottenham’s old White Hart Lane stadium, in 1971 and 2004.

The Gunners failed to win silverware in enemy territory this time, but their fifth win in the last seven North London derbies kept them in the running for the title for the first time in 20 years.

The defeat was a crushing blow for fifth-placed Tottenham, who sit seven points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa with two games remaining to keep alive their fading hopes of qualifying for the Champions League.

“We allowed them too easy access to their goal. That’s unacceptable at this level and we paid the price for it against a very good team,” said Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou.

Arsenal recovered from a stormy start to take the lead in the 15th minute.

Saka’s corner was headed into the six-yard box, where Hojbjerg tried to get clear past Arsenal’s Takehiro Tomiyasu, but instead put the ball into his own net.

Romero should have equalized when Arsenal keeper David Raya misjudged James Maddison’s free-kick, allowing the defender to rise for a close-range header, which he somehow directed against the post instead of into the empty net. Did.

Micky Van de Ven thought he had equalized for Tottenham when Pedro Porro’s shot deflected off his path, but VAR intervened to rule that the centre-back was marginally offside.

Arteta’s men celebrated the decision as if they had scored the goal themselves, and that’s exactly what they were doing in the 27th minute.

Havertz played a brilliant long pass to Saka down the right and the winger took on Ben Davies before cutting inside to beat Guglielmo Vicario with a clinical low strike from 12 yards.

Arsenal were ruthless in front of goal and Havertz grabbed the third with a well-worked corner routine in the 38th minute.

As Tottenham took up zone-marking positions, a group of Arsenal players, including Havertz, were left unmarked as they made late runs into the area, giving the German the chance to finish Declan Rice’s corner with a close-range header .

But Tottenham refused to give up and Romero reduced the deficit in the 64th minute, latching onto Raya’s ridiculously poor pass from the edge of the area and scoring.

Rice set up an unnecessarily tense finale for Arsenal by drawing a foul on Davies, and conceding a penalty, which Son converted beyond Raya in the 87th minute.

In Sunday’s other early kick-off, Bournemouth beat Brighton 3-0 with goals from Marcos Senesi, Enes Unai and Justin Kluivert.

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