The Tottenham Hotspur DJ cranked up the volume at full time as Arsenal’s players made their way towards their supporters. It seemed like an attempt to drown out the provocative noise of celebration, but Mikel Arteta didn’t need words to express himself as he went to embrace his players. All week, they pushed themselves when Arsenal dearly needed it and the manager’s compliments after the 1-0 win were heartfelt.
Preparations for this match had thrown up complication after complication. “I didn’t enjoy it because I didn’t sleep much,” Arteta said. “I looked ahead to Spurs for four or five days and I had a clear plan how to do it. I prepared all the meetings, the training sessions and everything. Then I get the news that we’ve lost a player, and then another player and then another player, and I had to completely change it and adapt the plan to the players that we had available. It was a great challenge.”
Rising to that challenge was something he and his players addressed with seriousness and sacrifice. It required adaptability, mental and physical willingness, and, for some of the personnel out on the pitch, the determination to stretch their body to the limits.
Jorginho, who pressed and harassed and was a general nuisance to the opposition with the leadership necessary for the occasion, was cramped up in stoppage time. It was only his third full 90 minutes for Arsenal this calendar year. Jurrien Timber, who has been feeling his way back carefully from his anterior cruciate ligament injury, played with combative relish to start and finish a Premier League match for the first time.
There was a perception that this was a good time to play Arsenal, with the first-choice midfield decimated. At one point, there were four Hale End teenagers watching on and warming up from the sidelines.
The team meetings building up to this north London derby were intense and full of heart. Can you play 90 minutes? Yes. Can you play a different position? Yes. Whatever the question, they endeavoured to give a positive answer. Every player selected stood tall, listened, adjusted and bristled with positive attitude. This was a match about finding solutions to problems.
Strategically, Arsenal turned to a good, old-fashioned 4-4-2. It was a practical way of best using the limited resources available, to pair Jorginho and Thomas Partey in central midfield so they could share the load, while Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli were positioned to scrap when necessary and zip forward when possible.
Kai Havertz, with Leandro Trossard in support, dovetailed efficiently enough. But it was the defence, the rock upon which this team is built, that enabled Arsenal to tackle this game with confidence, despite the deficiencies they would have preferred to do without.
Let’s talk about Arsenal’s back line for a moment. They have a culture, a shared love of defending, an inbuilt understanding between them, which has created a collective fearlessness. That is about to get its biggest test next weekend at Manchester City.
But in general, the way they help each other out and defend as a group, rather than individuals, makes them bigger than the sum of their already impressive parts. It must be wearing for attackers trying to break them down.
The partnership of William Saliba and the matchwinner Gabriel is well established, but it was notable that David Raya and Timber, two newer members of the rearguard, played with character and authority.
Raya’s calmness and confidence have kicked on enormously since last season. As for Timber, this felt like a breakout performance. He played so assertively that it felt as if he had been part of this for years. Winning this match with his own contribution felt like a moment when he was officially inducted into the back four. Welcome, Jurrien, to this very exclusive joint.
Arsenal needed a moment, a hero, to seize all the points and it came when Saka delivered a perfect invitation for Gabriel to turn his head into a human cannon ready to fire the ball into the happy oblivion of the Tottenham net.
Arteta was delighted with the collective response from his squad. “Loving the game means that you can do things regardless of the context,” he says. “Jorginho loves the game. When he’s not playing, he’s training like an animal every day even though he’s won everything. When you ask him to play 90 minutes, which he hasn’t played for months, he can do it.
“The same with Jurrien. It’s been a year out and he hasn’t played 90 minutes at all. He was struggling but he managed to do it for the team. Kai, without a pre-season, I don’t know how many minutes he’s played, but he was unbelievable. All of them — that’s the spirit and the characters we have that I love.
“It’s a tough week coming and, instead of finding excuses, we did the opposite. The team got hungrier and hungrier to play the game. We have people that are hard and have thick skin. They love the game and we love winning. To love the game and win, you have to do things that people call ugly. ”
The fixture list hardly threw up a gentle set of away games to open the season, with Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester City in early succession. Even though the performances have not been perfect enough for Arteta, finding ways to win the first two, without conceding a goal, augurs well.
The week ahead remains hugely demanding, with a Champions League trip to Bergamo to play Atalanta, before the Etihad and all the vibrations that brings.
There will be more problems, more questions and the need for more solutions. One thing Arteta can be sure of is that his players will do their absolute best to find them.
(Top photo: Gabriel celebrates his goal; by Justin Setterfield via Getty Images)
