Ten-man Arsenal suffered a 2-0 defeat to North London rivals Spurs at White Hart Lane in a game they could never really get a foothold in.
Tottenham started the brighter of the two teams and a nice one-two between Ruben Lameiras and Souleymane Coulibaly freed the latter but he couldn’t apply the finish and flashed a shot past the far post.
Arsenal goalkeeper Matt Macey was asked many questions aerially in the first half. He dealt with them pretty well, too. The tall stopper has an air of confidence very similar to first-team ‘keeper Wojiech Szczesny.
The young Gunners only real chance came from Thomas Eisfeld, who’s shot forced a save from Jordan Archer after Jon Toral had a shot blocked by a Spurs defence led by Vlad Chiriches.
Tottenham were the better team leading up until the red card, but the sending off of Hayden turned it into a procession. Ruben Lameiras, who was at the heart of everything good for the home side, ran at the Arsenal defence, showed some lovely footwork to get in on goal, before Isaac Hayden brought him down for a penalty.
The Arsenal ‘skipper was shown a red card and it forced a re-shuffle from the Gunners. Glen Kamara deputised at right-back and Leander Siemann slotted into centre-half.
Souleymane Coulibaly took the penalty and made no mistake – smashing it down the middle. Spurs took their 1-0 lead into the break. Arsenal had a real task on their hands if they were to turn this around.
This task look impossible as the hosts came out of the break the strongest. The man advantage – combined with the absence of players like Chuba Akpom and Hector Bellerín – really started to tell.
Another young Spurs player that really impressed was Nathan Oduwa. He had a couple of efforts early in the second half but was unable to double Tottenham’s lead. Regardless, he looks a real physical specimen and his tricky dribbling could see him having a big future in professional football.
Thomas Eisfeld had a chance to level the scores with a free-kick from around 20-yards out. It went just over. The game was getting away from the Gunners.
Arsenal tried to creeped back into the game with the introduction of Zak Ansah, but he didn’t have the answer (no pun intended).
Ruben Lameiras continued to drive at the heart of the defence and carved open our backline many times. On one occasion, his through ball found McEvoy who was prevented a goal by a couple of fantastic saves from Matt Macey.
Macey was unable to stop the second goal as Lameiras combined with Harry Winks before Winks slotted in a curling effort past the helpless goalie. On the balance of play, it was probably a fair result.
Looking back, the red card spoiled the contest. Arsenal were forced to change into a 4-4-1 formation and never looked comfortable once they had lost the midfield battle. Gedion Zelalem showed some flashes of brilliance, but was overrun by a hard-working opposing midfield. Spurs looked fired up in front of a loud home crowd and were just the better team on the day. Arsenal will have to improve for the FA Youth Cup semi final clash with Chelsea.
