Per Mertesacker is convinced that our issues against Spurs arose due to our lack of creativity.

We currently have Theo, Bellerin, Ramsey and the Ox out with injury and it’s showed in recent matches. Our entire midfield seems to go missing and we appear devoid of ideas going forward. The fact that Gibbs, a defender, had to come on and score in our 1-1 draw against Spurs highlights this.

The captain spoke after the game and admitted that he’s disappointed with the draw but we did really struggle in the first half.

“It’s an interesting position but we still have room for improvement,” he said.

“When you look at the first half we need to manage to play a lot better. We lost our creativity and our way to play a bit, but how we came back shows that we have got a good mentality and level of character in the squad. That’s important for the Christmas period coming up.”

Although we do still have creative players on the pitch, Ozil for example, they don’t work well if they’re split up. Spurs were completely overrunning us in midfield and we couldn’t seem to string any passes together.

Hopefully, the international break will give us some breathing space so we can come back stronger and our injured players will start to return to fitness.