If you are of an Arsenal persuasion, then it’s likely you’re sitting very happy right now. The Gunners are top of the table, and Mikel Arteta’s side have just dispatched their fierce rivals. Life doesn’t get much better, right?
The sequence of events that played out at the Emirates made their 4-1 victory all the more sweeter.
Speaking in the build-up to the game, Thomas Frank jokingly replied to a reporter’s question about Eberechi Eze by saying, “Who’s Eze?”
The England international infamously rejected a move to Tottenham in the summer despite everything looking as though it was agreed. He joined their rivals instead, heading to his boyhood club, the club of his dreams. The club that rejected him when he was just a boy in the academy.
Well, let it all work out. Frank certainly knows who Eze is now. Draped in Arsenal red, following a few slow months to start the season, he is now a hero.
Arteta’s men strengthened their grip at the top of the Premier League table by recording a remarkable win and much to Frank’s dismay, Eze was the man of the moment, scoring a quite breathtaking hat-trick.
How Eberechi Eze downed Spurs
Wow, just wow. What a moment this was. A few years ago Eze revealed that he cried in his room when he was rejected by Arsenal.
It was always his dream to play for the club and well, that dream became a reality in the summer. Never in his wildest dreams, however, did he expect what played out on Sunday, even if he did pray for such a moment to occur.
This was one of the finest individual performances from an Arsenal player that we can remember. To recount more recent memories, it’s up there with Declan Rice’s performance against Real Madrid last term, with Andrey Arshavin’s four-goal haul at Anfield. Sometimes a player delivers a performance that is so perfect it gets talked about for years to come. This was that moment.
Eze has had to work hard to find form this term, playing a mixture of games on the left flank and in the middle. With skipper Martin Odegaard out injured, he’s had a chance to showcase why he was purchased for £67.5m in the summer.
Yet, before that clash with Spurs, the former Crystal Palace man had scored just once in the league. How quickly things change in football.
Each goal Eze scored just seemed to get better. The first was supplied by Declan Rice and perhaps rather fortuitously, he managed to get a shot away amidst a bunch of Spurs players. It rifled past the goalkeeper to make it 2-0 after Leandro Trossard had opened the scoring.
Eze’s night got better in the second half when, minutes after the half-time interval, he darted onto Jurrien Timber’s pass and found the corner of the goal with his left foot.
His third and final goal came late on when Spurs had thrown players forward. Trossard was at the centre of things again, playing the ball into Eze, who was standing inside the area. He took a touch to set himself and then lashed it home. It capped off an incredible performance, one that will live long not just in his memory, but in the memory of supporters.
Still, he’s not the only one in red and white who had their best game in Arsenal colours.
Not just Eze: Another Arsenal star had his best game for the club
There was a primary reason Arsenal signed Eze in the summer. They needed more depth and they needed more quality on the left flank.
Noni Madueke had already been signed from Chelsea but in Gabriel Martinelli and the aforementioned Trossard, they lacked spice. Between them, they scored eight goals each in Premier League action last term.
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The Belgian was perhaps questionably handed a summer pay rise to keep him at the club but when Eze signed, his career at the Emirates Stadium looked as good as done.
Well, how wrong were we? Trossard, in the words of Arsenal writer Connor Humm, has “arguably been the best winger in the Premier League this season.”
Always a man for the big occasion, the 30-year-old rose to the mark again and put in a performance that was equally effective as Eze’s.
Trossard opened the scoring in the first half in brilliant fashion. It was a run from out to in, one that was said to be “like Robert Pires” by Gary Neville on Sky Sports commentary, that made the goal.
Mikel Merino still had plenty to do, however, but he clipped a pass beautifully into the path of Trossard. He took the ball down, spun and then found the net on his left foot. Advantage Arsenal.
Trossard’s work was not done there. The £27m man registered two key passes, one of which proved decisive as he supplied Eze’s goal that sealed his hat-trick.
As The Standard’s Simon Collings noted when the Belgium winger was substituted late on, it was “probably one of his best games in an Arsenal shirt.” Quite.
Minutes played
78
Goals
1
Touches
39
Accurate passes
11/23 (48%)
Key passes
2
Assists
1
Shots on target
1
Accurate crosses
1/1
Successful dribbles
0/4
Duels won
4/10
It was a tireless performance and one that epitomised the former Brighton forward’s time in London.
In the 32 matches in which Trossard has scored for Arsenal, they have never lost. The games he’s scored the most goals of his career against? Liverpool (6), Chelsea (4) and Spurs (4).
The winger is no Usain Bolt, he’s not the quickest player in the world. He’s no Bukayo Saka either, he lacks the same explosiveness. However, what he lacks in that regard, he makes up for in technical ability and mental fortitude. He is a mental giant and one of the hardest-working players in this team.
Eze certainly stole the show at the Emirates but Trossard deserves his flowers too.