Well now, isn’t today the most glorious of days, eh?

It’s 8am, the sun is rising on a crisp November morn and Arsenal are, once again, kings of North London. A dominating North London Derby that saw open play goals, a six point lead at the top opened up, plus a performance from one of the new signings – and boyhood Gooner – that will go down in Arsenal folklore. North London Derby moments for me are:

  • Dennis Bergkamp at Highbury in 1996
  • Thierry Henry’s solo goal in 2002
  • Fabregas’ quick one after the kick off in 2009

Eze adds his name to that list after hit hatty yesterday. And I don’t think there’s an Arsenal fan out there who could be happier about that.

I said yesterday morning that I thought the first goal was the most important in what I expected to be a really grotty game. I thought Frank and his Spurs team would come to sit deep and hit us on the counter. The team line-ups suggested that too, as he went for a back five and two holding midfielders in front, with the sole aim of frustrating a home team and home fans throughout the 90. But this is an Arsenal side on a mission so far this season. They are professional, they are driven and they are focused and from the first minute we asserted our dominance by being camped in the Tottenham half. Even before the goal there were chances for Saka, saves from Vicario and you could tell this wasn’t going to end as a boring 0-0. Arsenal were on it.

And so too, once again, was Leandro Trossard, who got us on our way. His run was superb, it was timed to perfection, but the pass from Mikel Merino was sensational. It felt Odegaard-y and on a day in which the Norwegian wasn’t quite ready to make the match day squad, the Spaniard stepped up once more to provide end product in the form of his assist to set us on the way to what would be a supremely comfortable home win.

The first goal scored, what I thought would be interesting would be to see how the Scum reacted to being behind. They’ve not been great in chance creation so far this season, so it would be interesting to see whether they opened up a bit when they had to chase the game. But…they just didn’t. They didn’t come at us, they didn’t open up, they just kind of…well…did the same thing, which I thought was a bit weird. This is a North London Derby. Your fans demand you rise to the occasion. Yet what they did was…well…nothing.

To be far, there was just five minutes between Trossard’s opener on 36 minutes and Eze’s first of his hat trick on 41, but by the time that hit the net, I suspect most of those Spurs players knew the game was done. His first goal was a well-taken and perfect example of what he brings to this Arsenal team: chance creation. He has a go. He takes shots. He scores goals. It was a fine finish and as opposed to his muted response against Palace, this one was most certainly a celebration worthy of a smile or two.

But he wasn’t done there.

I’d not even got back to my seat from the halftime beers when we were three up. Ebs again to seal the game and turn this into a cakewalk. Again, another fine finish from the edge of the D and that Spurs defence – which we’ve been told by their fans is the best in the league and better than Saliba / Gabriel – pulled apart like a dry biscuit. It was another cool and composed finish from a guy who has made those types of goals his own in his Palace and now Arsenal career.

This was fun. This was easy. This was a great derby day to be enjoyed, with just one blot on the copybook, which was Richarlison getting his ‘once-on-a-lifetime’ goal. No chicken celebrations today though. It was a good finish, to be fair and that will annoy Raya, but that is just what we do by pressing him higher up the pitch so he becomes a passing outlet, so I’m not going to complain too much.

And on a day in which we’ve picked up three points and scored four open play goals, you can’t really complain, because Eze restored the difference to ensure no nervy ends on 76 minutes with another fine finish to see us over the line.

This was a superb Arsenal performance. Not just for the goals, but for the defence too who whilst they’ll be annoyed they didn’t pick up a clean sheet, will be pleased with the fact they reduced the Scum to basically nothing. I’ve just looked at the numbers and in the first half Tottenham created precisely 0.00xG and didn’t even have a shot on goal. In the second half they created 0.07xG and that came from Richarlison’s long-range strike. That was it. That was the sum total of their parts and it was an Arsenal performance that had everything aside from the clean sheet it probably deserved.

Mikel was rightly happy with the display and you could tell how pleased he was by his post-match comments. That, and we even had time to get Noni on the pitch on 78 minutes for a run out, with Gabriel Martinelli reserved for midweek and Bayern. We’ve navigated another really tricky game on paper and for this difficult week of fixtures that we have we’re one for one as it stands. Arteta will give them all the day off today, but it’ll be back tomorrow ahead of the Bayern game and game faces on for his squad. But for us we can bathe in the glory that is a North London Derby win. Happy days.

Amanda and I will be podcasting later this evening at 7.30pm so if you fancy joining us and jumping in on the joy in the chat, you can do so here. Other than that, I’ll be back tomorrow. Catch you all then.