Following his first defeat in a north London derby, Mauricio Pochettino seemed to get a bit confused.

The game had just happened, yet he somehow managed to confuse many of the major moments as he claimed his Tottenham side “dominated” the second half.

Sure, the second half was tougher for Arsenal as Spurs were pushed on from their goal, but to say they dominated is ridiculous. The hosts managed three shots on target across the entire 90 minutes, so it’s hard to suggest they ever had Arsenal under any real intense pressure.

“I feel bad for the result but not for the performance. It was a good game,” the Spurs manager said after the match. “We were unlucky to concede the goals we did. In the second half we dominated the game.”

“There are a lot of positive things we have to take into the game on Saturday.

“Harry Kane had some chances to score but was a little bit unlucky.”

Tottenham came closest to a goal when Kieran Gibbs nodded an acrobatic effort Harry Kane off the line, but that was hardly even a chance. Spurs created very little, and Kane’s goal drought went on.

The striker has now scored just once in his last 13 games in a Tottenham shirt and, despite playing well on Wednesday, his search for a goal goes on. For some reason he doesn’t get the stick that Olivier Giroud, with two goals to his name this season, receives.

The second half saw Arsenal squander a number of opportunities. The biggest chance of the half fell to Giroud, who was slid through by Aaron Ramsey only to have his effort saved by Michel Vorm.

On the break spaces opened up for Ramsey, Alexis Sánchez and Theo Walcott but none of them struck the ball cleanly.