Tottenham Hotspur Player Ratings vs Arsenal

A scrappy North London derby favoured Arsenal in the end as the Gunners secured the 3 points courtesy of a 23^rd minute flicked finish by Olivier Giroud. The fluidity of Arsenal’s play compared to the disjointed nature of Spurs’ resulted from the flurry of new signings featuring for Spurs. Although it is obviously devastating to lose to Arsenal, we gave a reasonable account of ourselves and I look forward to the new signings all gelling together.

Hugo Lloris – 8 – Had an excellent game, coming out of his goal time and time again to thwart Walcott and making some crucial interceptions inside his area.

Kyle Walker – 4 – Had a terrible game, giving away a few needless free-kicks in our half and wrongly deciding to shoot on a number of occasions in the second half.

Michael Dawson – 5 – In the wrong for the goal by not holding the high line; there was no need to track the run of Giroud.

Jan Vertonghen – 6 – Solid enough without ever producing the spectacular. Thus far, has failed to reproduce his promising offensive ability of last year and his time at Ajax.

Danny Rose – 5 – Contributed more than Walker going forward but I lost count of the number of times that he let Walcott get goal side of him.

Etienne Capoue – 6 – Reasonably solid although didn’t play as well as he did against Swansea and Palace, and I hope his injury is not too serious after he was stretchered off.

Paulinho – 6 – Passed the ball around well enough but wasn’t incisive enough in the final third and is evidently still finding his feet in the premier league.

Mousa Dembele – 5 – A poor game from the Belgian in my view, playing the more advanced midfield role doesn’t seem to suit him and he failed to have much offensive influence.

Andros Townsend – 6 – Looked dangerous but needs to have passing as his first intention with shooting as a plan B rather than have shooting as his first intention with passing as a plan B – we have other goalscorers in the team.

Nacer Chadli – 5 – Whenever he is on the ball he looks quite dangerous but he didn’t see enough of the ball today and he had a limited influence.

Roberto Soldado – 5 – AVB needs to tell our midfield to pass to him! Whenever he gets on the ball inside the area, he gets a shot away on target, and so he needs to have the opportunity to do more of that.

Substitutes

Jermain Defoe – 6 – Dropped deep to get on the ball and got the ball moving around the box, but didn’t have any efforts on goal.

Sandro – 6 – We were just attacking by the time he was on but he seemed reasonably solid although still not quite match fit.

Erik Lamela – 6 – Demonstrated a lot of potential and a desire to get into the penalty area but it didn’t quite work for him in his short cameo. He will be huge for us once he settles in – he’s only been a Tottenham player for 48 hours.

Ultimately, this North London derby came a little too early in the season for us. When our new signings gel and our team has a settled Lloris, Kaboul, Vertonghen, Sandro, Paulinho, Eriksen, Lamela and Soldado in it, then we will find out how good we really are.

By Alex Beck