Arsenal u23s put in a dominant performance to defeat their North London rivals on Friday night, and the Tottenham Hotspur youngsters showed their frustration by going down to 10 men late on.
Arsenal were without their two star players on Friday at the Emirates Stadium, with Reiss Nelson leaving on loan to Hoffenheim, and Unai Emery seemingly saving Eddie Nketiah for the first-team trip to Cardiff. The Gunners also lost captain Josh Dasilva to Brentford over the summer.
Despite all that, the young side starting the match were completely on top from the first minute. The game was barely underway when Joe Willock smashed in a loose ball in the box for 1-0. After that the team kept creating chance after chance, with Willock seeing another one-on-one saved, and Emile Smith Rowe seeing a goal ruled out for offside.
The second half went the same way, with Smith Rowe hitting the post, before Tyreece John-Jules made a chance count with a clinical finish into the bottom corner for 2-0. Then Bukayo Saka came on and won a penalty, which was well saved.
At this point the Spurs players were starting to lose it, having created next to nothing all game whilst watching Arsenal have chance after chance. It was only thanks to their goalkeeper, the linesman and a bit of luck that they were still in the game at all.
Their frustration boiled over, with Troy Parrott losing his head at Julio Pleguezuelo’s taunts and getting himself sent off for lashing out at the Arsenal man.
Troy Parrott, our captain in ten years time pic.twitter.com/ShG0DVtff3
— LP ✈️ (@Verttonghen) August 31, 2018
Spurs fans on Twitter celebrated the push, but it’s Arsenal fans who should be pleased. Pleguezuelo riled the opposition up all game, whilst never putting himself in danger of a sending off of his own. He showed his fight without costing the team.
On the other hand, Parrott will now have to serve a suspension for violent conduct, just to double his team’s misery.
Late on, in the 94th minute, Spurs finally created a chance and scored an undeserved consolation goal. Nonetheless, Arsenal took the three points and Tottenham remain in the relegation zone. Job done.