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From Tottenham’s perspective, Sunday’s North London derby was a day when everything bad that could have happened happened.
After the way things had been progressing for José Mourinho’s team in recent weeks, what I saw of them in their Defeat 2-1 at Emirates Stadium it felt like a huge step backward in various ways.
Spurs had entered the game after three straight wins in the Premier League and a couple of convincing victories in Europe, scoring many goals and separating some of those teams.
Everything looked good. They have to wait for the Carabao Cup final, they have one foot in the Europa League quarter-finals, and they are within walking distance of the top four. Potentially, with the way they had started to play, I thought this season could be amazing.
Then, a performance later, I am left thinking that no, it was all a lie.
It seems that all my optimism was completely misplaced because it came after three minnows had played, basically, at Burnley, Fulham and Crystal Palace. The moment they have faced someone decent, they have returned to writing.
That means sitting deep and being cautious, which again got the Spurs nowhere on Sunday. And what we saw against Arsenal is what is going to happen every time unless Mourinho puts them back playing with the front foot.
‘Tottenham’s mentality was absolutely horrible’
Tottenham’s display against Arsenal was a huge surprise but, above all, their mentality for the game was absolutely terrible.
Going to any derby with the kind of mentality I saw in the whole Spurs team in the first half is looking for trouble. They were there to be beaten, plain and simple.
I don’t see the point in putting Harry Kane, Gareth Bale, Son Heung-min and Lucas Moura on the field if you’re just going to sit outside the opposition and let them have control of the game like they did.
The only thing you always try to do in these situations is let the other team know who’s boss. The last thing you want to do is let them build their confidence, but the Spurs did exactly that.
At first Arsenal would play one, two and then three passes and you would see them thinking ‘yeah, this feels good’. Nobody stopped them.
I could sit here and say that Bale and Matt Doherty on Tottenham’s right side were weak, and yes, that’s where Arsenal are very happy going forward.
But Bale is not on the pitch to defend, he is to go forward and make things happen and that’s another thing that I thought was massively lacking in the first half.
Once Son was injured after 19 minutes, there were no longer front runners behind the Arsenal defense. There was no attempt to hurt them at all.
‘Hojbjerg was nowhere to be seen’
The highlight for Spurs was Lamela’s incredible ‘rabona’ goal. It was just awesome, and it lifted me up and out of my seat even though my legs are dying after walking 100km for Comic Relief this week.
But it came out of nowhere and they couldn’t build on it. Sometimes when you take the lead against a game like that, you can tell us “okay, we have to fix it now”, but that just didn’t happen.
Arsenal’s draw was a terrible goal to concede – Doherty’s defense was too weak and Kieran Tierney overcame it too easily. Then, from his clipping, Martin Odegaard was unmarked: it was all a little school.
The same thing happened through the Spurs team. They did not seem convincing in anything they did and had no authority anywhere in the field. I don’t know what happened to Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg recently. He started the season absolutely on fire, but I think it has gone unnoticed how poor he has been in recent weeks.
Hojbjerg was nowhere to be seen during Sunday’s game, but he wasn’t the only one. There was just poor performance after poor performance across the field. It was so disappointing.
Kane was also extremely quiet, until Lamela was expelled. He then decided to come back to life, but I really don’t understand why the Spurs took the red card to start attacking. It felt a bit like they were thinking “we are losing and we have 10 men left, let’s throw caution to the wind.”
No, don’t wait. You have good players so go ahead and play forward first. When you have that mindset to go and take risks, like Arsenal did, you get the rewards.
‘The son’s wound adds salt to the wound’
Don’t get me wrong, the big decisions were against Spurs on Sunday; I don’t think it was a penalty for the Arsenal winner and Lamela was unlucky enough to receive two yellow cards.
But that’s not where the game was won and lost: Arsenal were much better and they ended up winning because they approached the game in a really positive way, they were brave with the ball and they showed their quality.
Instead, Tottenham’s approach reeked of a Mourinho who was more concerned about Arsenal than about his own team, and who showed what Spurs could do. He didn’t prepare them to win that game, he prepared them worried about what the opposition can do to them.
To add some salt to the wound, the Spurs have lost Son during what could be the best part of six weeks with his hamstring injury, and have also lost some of Bale’s loyalty to the cause. .
If I were Bale, I would be annoyed to be dragged out before time for a North London derby, because I would be looking around thinking I have not been worse than everyone else here.
Mourinho could have also sent that relationship to ground zero.
Jermaine Jenas was talking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
