After Arsenal’s win against Spurs, Arsene Wenger was one of the first people to acknowledge that Mathieu Flamini was one of the least likely to score two goals.

The midfielder has found it hard to even break into the side this season and was heavily linked with a move away from north London over the summer. Therefore, for him to score two goals – the second of which being fantastic – was a surprise to most.

Wenger admitted post-match that Flamini has been frustrated lately and that his display on the pitch tonight probably had a lot to do with wanting to prove himself.

“You do not expect Mathieu Flamini to score two goals,” he said. “He was certainly frustrated for a long time and he went for it. He scored two good goals, especially the second one. I think on the second one he made an early decision to go for it and just focused and finished with a great goal.”

The boss went on to hail the strength we had tonight, Flamini included, to fight for the win despite still feeling a little hard done by after Saturday’s loss to Chelsea in the Premier League.

“Overall I must say we responded well mentally and physically to the challenge we faced tonight and it was a convincing performance,” Wenger said. “We were unlucky to concede an own goal and we found the resources to score a second.

“Tottenham gave absolutely everything but [after] around 70 minutes we could take advantage. They dropped a little bit with their intensity and we found a little bit more space to play just at the moment when Alexis came on. We found we could create dangerous situations.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this new, confident Flamini fits into Arsenal’s plans in the near future and whether he’ll be looking at a starting spot against Leicester.