Three Things We Learned: Arsenal Dismantle Tottenham 4-1 to Restore Five-Point Lead

Manchester City had closed the gap to two points on Saturday, forcing the question of whether Mikel Arteta’s side had the spine for a title run-in. The answer came loud and clear at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday. Arsenal’s 4-1 Premier League demolition of their north London rivals, featuring braces from Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyökeres, sent the Gunners five points clear at the summit with ten games remaining. The win was Arsenal’s fifth consecutive Premier League victory over Spurs, a result that stands as their most emphatic league victory at this ground in nearly half a century, and a timely reminder that this squad has reserves of quality and resilience that recent results had temporarily obscured.

Context matters here. Arsenal had stumbled through their previous seven league matches, collecting maximum points in only two of them, a run that had allowed City back into the race. The derby, played in front of a crowd that booed every Arsenal touch, carried real psychological weight. Arteta’s team delivered something more than a win. They delivered a controlled, structured, tactically coherent performance that grew in authority as the afternoon progressed. The stats back it up: 2.7 xG to Tottenham’s 0.7, 45 progressive passes to Spurs’ 9, 64 deep touches to 13, and a field tilt of 77.3% that tells its own story about where the match was played.

Lesson One: Arsenal’s Tactical Intelligence Was the Margin

The tactical contest was one-sided, and it became more so as both halves developed. Tottenham set up in a 3-5-2 that dropped into a low block, attempting to funnel Arsenal wide and keep them away from central danger zones. In the opening exchanges, that structure caused some complications. Arsenal’s central runners struggled to win contacts into a congested box, and the wing-backs stayed connected to the back line when the midfield held its shape.

Arsenal’s response was methodical. On the right, Bukayo Saka and Jurriën Timber worked overlapping and underlapping combinations to test Djed Spence and stretch the block. Piero Hincapié and Leandro Trossard mirrored those movements on the left. When Tottenham tried to press higher and operate in a player-oriented man-marking structure, Arsenal’s central midfielders vacated the middle, dragging Spurs’ midfield three across large expanses of grass and opening the very channels Tottenham were trying to protect. Gyökeres and Eze rotated into those spaces with forward runs that Tottenham’s wide centre-backs couldn’t cover without abandoning their structure.

The second half brought a tactical refinement. Arsenal’s full-backs held slightly deeper, accepting that crossing into a packed box had limits. Instead, they drew Tottenham’s midfielders toward them, creating the interior space that allowed Declan Rice and Eze to operate between the lines. Timber’s reversed pass that put Gyökeres through for the second goal was the clearest expression of this shift: patient wide build-up, a quick change of tempo, and a killer ball into the space Tottenham had vacated. Non-shot xG of 2.1 to Tottenham’s 0.6 across the 90 minutes confirms how thoroughly Arsenal controlled the game even before shots were considered. This was not a performance built on individual moments. It was a systemic dismantling.

Lesson Two: Eze and Gyökeres Have Answered Their Critics

Both players entered Sunday under scrutiny of different kinds, and both left with braces and significant question marks erased.

Eze had gone 18 consecutive appearances without a goal in all competitions since his hat-trick against the same opponents in November. Doubts had accumulated about whether his style, the dribbles, the creative combinations, the instinctive movement, could be consistently channeled within Arsenal’s structure. His first shot on target since November opened the scoring, and his second goal, a composed finish after a scramble in the box on the hour mark, put the game beyond Spurs. Seven goals into his Arsenal career, five have arrived against the same opponent, a ratio that speaks either to extraordinary fixation or remarkable timing. That specificity could invite cynicism, but the wider performance was the more important indicator. He pressed intelligently, combined quickly, and provided the kind of threat that occupied defenders and created space for Gyökeres throughout the afternoon. With 0.36 xG on the day and an xA contribution that reflected his involvement in Arsenal’s buildup, this was a full performance, not just a goalscorer’s afternoon.

Gyökeres’ case is slightly different. His arrival from Sporting CP was greeted with enormous expectation, and his record of 15 goals across all competitions for Arsenal justifies some of that excitement. The question has been about fit, about whether a striker of his profile can operate within the movement-heavy, rotation-dependent system Arteta runs. Sunday offered the most convincing evidence yet that the answer is yes. His hold-up play allowed Arsenal to progress through pressure, his decoy runs created space for the third goal, and his curled finish for the second goal, taken on his first touch from the edge of the area, was technically exceptional. Across all competitions since January 1st, no one in the Premier League has found the net more often. The GPA chart shows him as Arsenal’s joint-top contributor on the day. His ball progression numbers placed him at the top of the pitch in terms of carrying fields gained. At 25, and with ten league games remaining, this looks like a striker who has found his footing at the right time.

Saka, operating as stand-in captain, was fouled four times in the first half alone but kept producing. His persistence on the right bypassed two Spurs blocks and directly created Eze’s opener. His eventual withdrawal with a minor knock late in the match is the one concern to monitor before Chelsea next Sunday.

Lesson Three: The Title Race Is Still Arsenal’s to Control

Two months ago, this result would have felt like routine consolidation. After the wobbles of recent weeks, it carries greater weight. Arsenal’s Opta-projected title probability moved from 76.6% to 82.3% after the final whistle. They sit five points clear of City with ten games remaining and a meeting at the Etihad looming. That is the reality, and it is a favorable one.

The concern that persists is the error pattern. This was Arsenal’s fifth goal conceded from their own mistake this season, four of those five errors arriving after January 1st, a concentration of lapses in the calendar year that matches only Aston Villa for frequency across the division. Rice’s turnover, a moment of poor spatial awareness in a dangerous area, directly gifted Tottenham their equalizer. It followed the logic of the concessions at Wolves and Brentford: moments of concentration loss immediately after a positive event. On Sunday, it didn’t cost Arsenal. Against Chelsea, Brighton, or in the run-in against teams with more attacking quality than this Tottenham side, it might.

The management of Timber’s booking, Arteta removing him promptly when it became clear he was hampering his defensive recovery in the second half, and the composed introduction of Cristhian Mosquera were encouraging signs of tactical and squad awareness. Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz are reportedly nearing returns. If Arsenal can get even one of them back for the final stretch while keeping the front four that started on Sunday available, the depth question softens considerably.

The fixture list still demands attention. Chelsea at home next Sunday, then Brighton away, then an FA Cup fifth-round trip to Mansfield. None of those are straightforward, and City will not stop accumulating points. The gap is five. The games in hand exist. Arsenal remain the team most likely to win this title, and Sunday was a significant reason why.

Conclusion

Three things came out of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday afternoon. First, that Arsenal’s tactical structure, when operating at the level Arteta designed it for, can dismantle any opponent in this league. The 45-to-9 progressive pass differential and the 77.3% field tilt were not accidents; they were the product of intelligent, adaptive play across 90 minutes. Second, that Eze and Gyökeres, the two players most scrutinized coming into the match, delivered the kind of performance that shifts narratives. Both found form at the right moment in the season. Third, that the title race is genuinely Arsenal’s to lose, and that the margin for the kind of errors that have crept into their game in 2026 is narrowing with every passing week.

The win felt necessary, and it was. Five points clear with ten games left, a full midweek off, and a squad that is returning to fitness: Arsenal are in a strong position. The next ten games will tell us whether this performance was a genuine turning point or a single excellent afternoon. On the evidence of what happened at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the honest answer is that both things can be true at once.