It seems a long time ago, but this game started really well for Arsenal.
The Gunners set out to win it from the off, and just four minutes in, a nervy Tottenham crowd appeared close to turning on Davinson Sanchez as he opted to pass back to Hugo Lloris due to the immaculate structuring of the Arsenal press in this 4-3-3 system.
His success in behind Ryan Sessegnon prompted Martin Odegaard to signal to him to continue operating in a high starting position to cause the hosts more problems about 15 minutes into the game.
Tottenham sat deep, as is their nature in these big games under Antonio Conte, building up a brick wall in front of Lloris‘ goal.
Still, Arsenal appeared prepared to patiently break it down with a chisel rather than panicking and attempting to sledgehammer through it.
Speaking after the game, Mikel Arteta seemed immensely frustrated that the decision to award a soft penalty for Cedric’s bump on Heung-Min Son had ruined such a good start.
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“Ask the referee to come in front of the camera to explain his decision,” the Spaniard told Sky after the game.
“It’s a shame because such a beautiful game was destroyed today.”
In many ways, Arteta is right in that the momentum of the game did probably swing on that one call midway through the first half.
If he’s looking for what really cost Arsenal across the 90 minutes, then he may be better served looking internally for solutions.
Rob Holding allowed himself to be lured into a situation where he received a second yellow before Harry Kane headed home a second from a corner.
This continues a slightly worrying pattern of how Arsenal tend to react to moments of adversity in big games.
This is a young Arsenal team, and they will hopefully use these testing situations as fuel to learn and develop.
If they qualify for the Champions League next season, then these kinds of big games are going to become a regular occurrence.
Holding loses his head. From minute one it seemed pretty obvious that Rob Holding was on edge in this game.
The look he shot Mohamed Elneny after the Egyptian briefly looked as though he might allow Harry Kane to pinch a ball on the halfway line said everything about how terrified the Arsenal centre back was of the Spurs counter.
Holding has been impressive enough in the past two games since coming into the side, but on both occasions, the game states have suited him somewhat.
On Thursday night as Arsenal travelled to one of the best counter-attacking teams in the league, it was blatant how petrified Holding was of getting exposed.
The final blow came not long after the opening goal as Holding could not resist needlessly shoulder barging the Korean as he sought to run onto a ball that was soaring miles away from him.
Holding had tried to play matador by brandishing a red rag to Tottenham’s bullish top scorer but ultimately ended up getting caught in his own cloth.
The 26-year-old has been a good servant to Arsenal this season.
To come in and play at the level he has against West Ham and Leeds despite basically being relegated to the role of a special teams player when the Gunners needed to see out tight games speaks volumes to the levels of professionalism he clearly possesses.
On a night when his team needed that trait the most, Holding was found sorely lacking.
It’s a lamentable lapse of judgement from someone normally so reliable, and the hope now will be that the consequences of it do not echo into the crucial games to come.
Arsenal this season have really given a new meaning to the phrase ‘when it rains, it pours‘.
The trend continued on Thursday night as after having already conceded three goals and lost Rob Holding to the first-half red card, Gabriel went down injured.
The Brazilian hasn’t had a single muscle injury in his career, but it appears to be just Arsenal’s luck that he’s pulled up at probably the most crucial point of the season.
Speaking after the game, Mikel Arteta was not positive about the prognosis.
It leaves Arsenal in something of a sticky situation at centre back now.
Ben White was not considered to be fit enough to come off the bench to fill in for Holding after the red, given that he would have had to play an hour of football.
Assuming Gabriel is out and White is unable to play 90 minutes, then with Holding’s suspension, the Gunners‘ only fit central defender would be Takehiro Tomiyasu, who himself had to be withdrawn early against West Ham just 11 days ago after suffering from exhaustion on his return from a four-month injury layoff.
The Japan international did a superb job filling in there on Thursday, but the situation is so difficult that Arsenal are even considering appealing Rob Holding’s red card.
This would leave Arsenal looking at the alternative options.
Granit Xhaka ended the game at the heart of the defence, while Mohamed Elneny has played at the heart of a three man defence in the past.
It’s a high stakes game, but with Champions League qualification at stake, it may well be the only hand Arsenal have to play.
Much of the talk around the game was focused on the enormous opportunity that presented itself to Arsenal.
With two games left to play, Arsenal still holds a one-point lead in fourth place, and if you’d offered most fans that at the start of the season, they probably would have taken it.
“That the disappointment doesn’t take over more than the great opportunity and beautiful two games we have ahead of us,” Mikel Arteta said in his post-match press conference.
Be it winning three of the trickiest looking post-March international break fixtures immediately after losing three of the most winnable looking ones, or starting the season with three losses, no goals scored, and nine conceded, Arsenal have chosen to do nothing this season the easy way.
Essentially this result doesn’t have to mean anything for Arsenal if they don’t let it.