Tottenham Hotspur welcomed Arsenal to Wembley Stadium for today’s early Premier League kickoff and we were looking not only for bragging rights in the London derby but also a return to winning ways after successive defeats this week.
Arsenal opened the scoring 16 minutes into the game, but Spurs were largely on top across the 90 minutes so with a disallowed goal for Harry Kane, he made no mistake from the penalty spot late on in the game.
The referee awarded Arsenal a spot kick of their but goalkeeper Hugo Lloris matched Patrick Aubameyang’s effort and saved the shot as well as a point. The visitors saw red late on, and the game petered out at 1-1 to return manager Mauricio Pochettino’s first draw of the 2018/19 campaign.
It was key that we didn’t lose this tie for a number of reasons, and although victory would obviously have been preferred, at least it draws a line.
Speaking to the BBC following the fulltime whistle, birthday boy Pochettino said of the performance and result.
“Yes Lloris’ save was a massive present. I am so happy because we didn’t deserve to lose the game we were better than them so it would be a shame to lose the game in that way. I am happy with the performance, it was a tough game difficult to play Arsenal but I am happy after two defeats to take a positive result to build confidence to go to Tuesday and Borussia Dortmund and go through to the next stage of champions league. The character that we showed was great to come back and the way we played maybe wasn’t great but we showed great character and sustained effort during the 90 minutes. Tottenham were better than Arsenal in the different aspects. In football there are different circumstances, sometimes you deserve and you don’t get and sometimes you get when you don’t deserve. The most important was mentality. It is a good result to keep gap and look forward to arrive in good condition against Dortmund.”