Shortly after the only goal of this bruising north London derby Arsène Wenger could be seen standing on the touchline, swirling the skirts of his sodden, quilted gown as he mimed a shove and bellowed the word “Push” at the teeming skies.
There are few human beings so adept at conveying a sense of doomed betrayal with just a flourish of those great gangling arms but, to his credit, Wenger accepted after the game that Harry Kane had out-muscled, rather than fouled, his central defense while heading in Tottenham’s winner.
Perhaps Wenger was instead directing his gesture towards his own team on an afternoon when Arsenal might have drawn 1-1, might as easily have lost 5-0, but were essentially shoved aside en route to a defeat that could go some way toward settling their league season.
Kane will grab the attention for another decisive performance. The contrast in his interpretation of the center-forward role and that of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was painful at times. On the one hand, a man who plays football as though the world is about to end in roughly 27 minutes. On the other, Aubameyang’s low-impact, sustainable take. Reduce. Recycle. Don’t run around very much at all.
If one quality defines Kane it is his relentlessness. To play against him must feel like being pursued by a one-man zombie horde, forced to perform at a level of absolute intensity.
For long periods Spurs overran Arsenal in the clinches. They were led by Kane up front. But they were driven on by the real surging mastermind of this victory and on current form the Premier League’s outstanding central midfielder.
It was not until the hour mark and his 50th touch that Mousa Dembélé finally misplaced a pass. Either side he was the dominant influence, embodying Mauricio Pochettino’s obsession with physical intensity, but also showing wonderful all‑round craft and discipline.
Dembélé is one of those players other players love, attracting purring reviews from his team-mates at that rare combination of running power, dribbling and passing. He is an unusual midfielder too, able to dominate a game, to run the mechanics of those key central spaces without registering in the stat-lovers columns. Dembélé has one league goal and one assist in the past two years, despite often spending large parts of games close to the opposition goal.
Instead, he plays the deeper game, the pass that makes the pass, the perfectly timed interception, the Premier League’s ultimate midfield controller.
The goal came from a moment of classic Dembélé as he chased back and wrenched the ball away from Mesut Özil, before dummying inside, changing direction and finding Ben Davies in space.
Davies’s cross was headed home in thrilling fashion by Kane, hanging above the Arsenal defense with the help of a little legitimate leapfrog contact.
Once again Dembélé had directed where and how. And once again Arsenal had been overpowered, first of all in the center by the master of the deep midfield battle; and then in defense, the center-halves left chewed up and squabbling on the floor.
Spurs surged away from Arsenal in that period, snapping their passing combinations together with a vicious sense of purpose. Only Jack Wilshere seemed to have the will and, indeed, the desperation to face that swarming physical challenge.
During those periods Wilshere versus Dembélé was a fine battle, even if at times the Arsenal man resembled an entirely different species altogether, a chipmunk wrestling with a grizzly bear. At others it was almost a little too much as Wilshere charged in with reckless abandon and was too often left dumped flat out on the grass in the physical mismatch.
Arsenal’s plan had been to pack the midfield in Aaron Ramsey’s absence, to fill those spaces and play on the break. It almost came off in the first half as Wilshere played the pass of the game, a lovely little reverse through ball behind the center-backs. Aubameyang was called offside, perhaps unfairly.
As Spurs upped their own levels in that central area their power and craft made the difference as it had against Manchester United. Eric Dier also had one of his better recent games, but it was Dembélé who always seemed to be one step ahead.
Some have suggested Dembélé should have had a more decorated career, could certainly have played for any of the European super clubs in a Paulinho+1 kind of role. But at a time when the role of the all-round central controller seems particularly demanding there is something genuinely thrilling in the way he drives this Spurs team on, performing here with an all-round authority that was simply too much for Arsenal’s midfield.
The Guardian Sport
