They arrived for a combined £131.5million last summer and neither has been a real hit – but Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyokeres will have well-deserved spots a key chapter of Arsenal’s story if they end their 22-year wait for a Premier League title this season.
Mikel Arteta backed the two signings with his starting XI and it paid off handsomely at Tottenham. What looked like a tricky North London Derby after the Gunners’ capitulation at Wolves in midweek was masterfully dealt with. Arsenal’s biggest away win at Tottenham since 1978.
Before the game Spurs’s stadium announcer had said: ‘There’s a fire to be lit. They’re nervous as hell.’ In reality, the super-professional league leaders looked anything but.
Eze had not even hit a shot on target in his severely-limited 11 league appearances since his hat-trick in the November reverse fixture but came to life with two goals here.
Gyokeres, who has often looked clunky and awkward since arriving from Sporting Lisbon, was a threat from early on and well rewarded with a thumping goal to put the visitors back into the lead after Randal Kolo Muani’s equaliser and then the clincher.
Viktor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze both scored twice as Arsenal beat Tottenham 4-1
It was his 10th Premier League goal of a much-maligned first season in England. ‘The best I’ve seen him in a big game,’ Gary Neville said. ‘He’s never going to be the most graceful. Sometimes he looks heavy, like he’s not moving really well.’
This was the most involved he has been in a Premier League game – the most touches he’s had alongside his two goals.
Newly-appointed Tottenham boss Igor Tudor has a lot of work to do and his team were comfortably second best – although they had reason to complain when a second Kolo Muani goal was ruled out for a dramatic reaction by Arsenal’s Gabriel to a shove in the back.
In the first half of this game the only thing that looked likely to stop Arsenal was an IT fault with the referees’ communications that halted the game – and left the uninformed crowd mystified – for almost six minutes.
‘An absolute joke,’ as Neville put it. ‘An absolute shambles’. He was equally unimpressed when the same issue delayed the start of the second half.
Eze lifts his led to clinically convert with his second touch for the opening goal
With 10 minutes on the clock, Arsenal had 82 per cent of the ball. The delay could have derailed them but it wasn’t long until the league leaders were showing their strength again.
Gyokeres was regularly winning battles with Radu Dragusin and it had Spurs living on the edge. Tudor had urged his new charges to ‘be brave’ but that is easier said than done against Arteta’s team at times.
And on 32 minutes the pressure paid. Bukayo Saka, fresh from signing his new contract this week, fought his way past Pape Matar Sarr in a victory for quality, skill and persistence. His low pass found Eze, who was fortunate that his loose first touch presented itself to him for a second dig. But there was nothing fortunate about the finish as he acrobatically lifted his leg to fire past Vicario.
Tottenham fought back instantly though. Declan Rice, the outstanding candidate for Footballer of the Year, had egg on his face when his rallying cry following the Eze goal was immediately followed by an error.
Declan Rice could only watch on as Randal Kolo Muani netted after robbing him of the ball
Kolo Muani nicked the ball off the Gunners’ midfielder and finished well – his first league goal since he was scoring for Tudor back at Juventus.
So Tottenham made it to half-time with their fans’ worst fears unrealised. But it wasn’t to last.
On 47 minutes Jurrien Timber’s cross found the big-money striker in acres of space just outside the penalty area. It was like a training-ground target practice drill for Gyokeres and he rifled in right-footed in front of the Arsenal fans mimicking his masked-man celebration.
Tottenham keeper Vicario couldn’t keep out Gyokeres’s rasping shot from range
Kolo Muani’s disallowed strike which looked like a second leveller was ruled out on the back of a very soft fall from Gabriel in the box – although the French forward was unwise to put both hands on the back of the Brazilian.
And from there Arsenal didn’t look back. Tottenham barely made inroads into their half as the quality truly told. Eze scrambled in his second after Vicario saved from Saka in a move that owed a lot to an excellent Gyokeres lay-off.
And then the Swede signed off in stoppage time with a second of his own.
Gabriel appeals for the foul that saw Kolo Muani denied a second equaliser against Arsenal
A smiling Eze celebrates after tucking away Arsenal’s third goal of the afternoon
