Chris Sutton has noticed one big difference between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal’s defenders following the North London Derby.
In what was yet another chaotic derby day, Tottenham fell to a 3-2 defeat at home to Arsenal on Sunday.
Mikel Arteta’s men raced into a 3-0 lead in the first half after making the most of Spurs’ weakness from set-piece situations.
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s unfortunate own goal opened the scoring for the Gunners following a near-post delivery from Bukayo Saka.
Tottenham had their moments in the 10 minutes that followed, with Micky van de Ven having an effort chalked off by the VAR due to an offside.
Dejan Kulusevski was also caught by Leandro Trossard in the area just moments before Saka doubled Arsenal’s lead.
The VAR waved away Spurs’ appeals due to ‘minimal contact’ between the players. But Postecoglou’s men were undone by yet another corner just 10 minutes later as Kai Havertz grabbed a third.
Despite second-half goals from Cristian Romero and Heung-min Son, it proved to be too big of a mountain to climb for Tottenham.
It was ultimately the defending of their own box which cost them on the day and Chris Sutton has pointed out the difference between the sides at the back.
Sutton on Arsenal and Tottenham’s defenders
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live [29/04 7:44pm], Sutton said barring Romero, Tottenham are lacking players who can reliably defend the penalty area.
“How many Tottenham players from the weekend would you actually look at and think, blimey, you can hang your hat on them, balls going into the box, 92nd minute, is there going to be three, four, five players who are going to dominate and head the balls out, and I can’t think of many,” he said.
“I can think of Romero. I don’t associate Van de Ven as being somebody who is super aggressive, but when I look at Arsenal, I see Gabriel and Saliba. They are two you think, blimey, we have got a chance with those two.”
Tottenham vs Arsenal
It’s no secret that Spurs have struggled with defending set-pieces in recent weeks and Arsenal certainly exposed that on Sunday.
The two goals scored from corners ultimately proved to be the difference between the sides after Spurs performed fairly well in general play.
The statistics may back Sutton’s view on Spurs’ struggles in defending their penalty area.
According to Sofascore, Arsenal had the edge in terms of aerial duels as they won 13 to Tottenham’s 10 on the day.
However, Romero excelled in this department as he won five of six aerial duels on the day, while Van de Ven won two of five contested.
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