Spurs 2-1 Arsenal

After three straight league wins and two cup victories, maybe I got lulled into a false sense of security. This side is clearly still a work in progress.

I wouldn’t say the current goodwill (there’s a Gabriel honeymoon and it’s now AD 8 – eight games Anno Coqueli) has dissipated, but it was the kind of anodyne showing that it’s hard not to scratch your head about.

We seem to have developed an unwanted habit of losing just when picking up a head of steam. We were unbeaten for six league games of the season before losing for the first time. Since then, our unbeaten league form has amounted to two matches, then four, then three.

Maybe that’s just fooball. Either way, it was completely deserved yesterday, as it was at Stoke and Southampton before. We were second best. The thing that struck me was the wastefulness of our possession. It seemed like every time we won the ball, we’d give it straight back. Gifting them the ball just piled the pressure on.

Carrying one player is not easy but our entire midfield was off colour. God knows why. Much as I’d rather not admit it, Spurs had an energy, intensity and concentration that we struggled to find in anything other than short bursts.

It’s easy to blame the ref for going easy on certain challenges but it’s deflecting the blame from what was a sub-standard Arsenal performance, frankly.

Not much more to say about it. Other than ‘don’t do it again’. We are not perfect but we can play better than that.