Arsenal 4-4 Tottenham: Match Report and Player Ratings

Arsenal 4-4 Tottenham, in one of the matches of the season, that produced one of the best goals of the season, Tottenham can raise their heads with pride, while Arsenal must hide their faces in shame.

In a match that was as good as over five minutes before the end, Arsenal suffered yet another setback in their attempts to win their first league title for four years.

Tottenham started out the better team, closing down Arsenal and making sure creative players like van Persie and Fabregas had no room to weave their silky patterns on the football pitch.

When Arsenal failed to clear a ball that was bouncing all over the place, David Bentley had the audacity to lob Almunia from about 43 yards. It was a goal of genius and quality and is surely a contender for goal of the season.

Arsenal almost replied straight away from a corner as Gallas had a half chance that he blasted over the bar. From open play they had little space to create chances and only appeared capable of scoring from a set play.

And a set play it was. Van Persie, who was majestic all night, whipped in a great ball for Silvestre to head in. However some may feel that Spurs goalkeeper Gomes might have dealt with the corner more capably.

At half-time it was level and things were building towards a great second half.

About a minute after the break William Gallas headed a free kick from Van Persie that made the score 2-1 to the Arsenal. It looked like history was repeating itself in North London derbies, with Arsenal in the ascendancy. Their third goal involved Van Persie again, he played a delicious ball for Nasri to set up Adebayor to toepoke it in. 3-1 and it seemed it was all over for Spurs.

However Spurs were given some hope, when Darren Bent anticipated Almunia parrying a powerful shot from long range and he nipped in to score. 3-2 and Tottenham were back in it.

Or were they? One minute later, Alan Hutton played a ball inexplicably straight to Emmanuel Adebayor, who ran on and passed the ball to van Persie. This time van Persie scored with his RIGHT foot. You know this match was crazy when Van Persie scores with his RIGHT foot.

The match appeared finished. Arsenal were cruising, they were dominating possession and Tottenham were on the racks. Only a mistake or wonder-goal would see Tottenham back in the match.

As it turned out it was both, as Gael Clichy made a rare mistake, losing his footing and gifting the ball to Jermaine Jenas, who carried the ball on and curled a left screamer from 20 yards to make it 4-3. Perhaps Tottenham had a way back in to the match after all.

Now this would usually be the time where Arsenal would wind the clock down and just pass Tottenham to oblivion. But instead they went looking for another goal with only minutes left, when perhaps it would have been better to keep the ball and just run it into a corner.

Unfortunately this cost them, as Tottenham pulled level after a great strike from Modric hit the post and Aaron Lennon tapped in the rebound. Once again a Tottenham player was quicker to the ball than either of Arsenal's centre backs.

That was it the fat lady had sung, the match was over and Harry Redknapp's great start with Tottenham goes on. While for Arsene Wenger, the reality is that he still has a lot of work to do to make Arsenal genuine title contenders.

One particular cause for concern was that all of Tottenham goals involved long range shoots, a constant theme for Arsenal bearing in mind that goals from Geovanni and Leadbetter before had also come from distance, things that Wenger will be looking to improve upon if Arsenal really want to challenge for the title.

Player Ratings

Arsenal

Almunia 5

Sagna 7

Silvestre 8

Gallas 6

Clichy 6

Walcott 7

Fabregas 7

Denilson 6

Nasri 6

Van Persie 9

Adebayor 6

Subs

Diaby 7

Song 5

Eboue 5

Tottenham

Gomes 5

Hutton 4

Corluka 6

Woodgate 6

Assou-Ekotto 6

Bentley 7

Modric 7

Jenas 7

Huddlestone 6

Bale 5

Pavlyuchenko 5

Subs

Bent 7

Gunter 6

Lennon 6

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