Arsenal dominate North London derby as Eze and Big Vik shine – Suburban Gooners

Football is crazy, right? I think on Thursday morning last week almost every Gooner to a man/woman/child was at their lowest point. We had blown a two-goal lead against the worst team in Premier League history and the media and rival fans were enjoying the misery, quick to use the word “bottlers” and telling us we were taking advantage. And to be fair, I was wondering the same thing on the WhatsApp and Back channels.

But as the saying goes: “It’s always darkest before dawn” and our dawning moment came yesterday at the Toilet Bowl Stadium.

I’ll get into the whys and whys of the game itself in a moment, but before I do I want to talk about what that means. Yes, Tottenham are terrible, yes, they have a lot of injuries, and yes, they haven’t won a game in 2026. Put like that, a team at the top of the league should definitely beat a team that is in the relegation quagmire. But this is a North London derby. This is the scariest game of the season. This is the moment when they stand up more than anything else. When you play against The Scum in this nonsense, you’re not playing against a team that’s at the bottom of the table, you’re playing history, you’re playing a cup final, you’re playing against a team that will do a lot more than their league form suggests. For Arsenal to do what they did yesterday, in the way they did it (and it wasn’t perfect, which I’ll come back to), to me really speaks volumes about these players.

I hope this is Arsenal’s Anfield moment, like City had a few weeks ago. I hope that the adrenaline and magnitude of this big game, and the way we dominated it, will make these players remember what Arsenal looks like in 2025, rather than the one that sputtered at the start of 2026. That’s what they’ll have to do because Chelsea at home next weekend is another extremely difficult game for them to overcome.

And so to the nuances of the game itself. And my God, wasn’t that an interesting game, wasn’t it? I think Arteta played brilliantly with his team selection by using Eze. One of the things we saw from him at Palace last season was how he a) is a big player and b) comes alive towards the end of the season. Well, here we are, and here he was, putting in a man of the match performance in my opinion, even if Viktor Gyokeres did it.

Eze was a key component in everything we did right yesterday. The time and space he found were devastating. Everyone rightly looks at the goals he scored in the crucial moments of the game, but it was other parts of his game that I loved. He found open spaces between the lines and fed players like Saka and Big Vik with ease. His heatmap looks like the archetypal “number 10” as his positions were just outside the D, but I also saw him left and right in conjunction with Trossard, Saka, Rice as well as the aforementioned Gyokeres. He created a great chance, had two crucial passes (one pass that led to a shot) and, more importantly, he felt like he was an important part of the game with a total of 41 touches. I really hope this is the point where he can really hit the ground running and I think that’s something Arteta has to think about for Chelsea next weekend.

But it was Big Vik who got the plaudits and the little yellow Premier League trophy at the end yesterday and I think with the two goals and the all-round performance he scored you could see why. The first one he scored was the archetypal goal we’ve seen on the highlight reels; He finds a little space and then absolutely pushes the ball into the net. It was a lovely and clever pass from Timber that got it to him, but his first touch was good enough to get into position and then the finish was brilliant. We all know his faults; He will be missed in many games but this was a big game in which he excelled and I don’t think there will be many Arsenal fans who will be unhappy with his performance yesterday. If you can just perform this more regularly, we don’t care that you don’t seem too involved, your technique isn’t very aesthetic to the eye, and sometimes it feels like you’re wading through treacle. Your job is goals, Viktor, and I’m glad you did the deal yesterday. What’s also somewhat strange is that, while we’ve struggled in 2026, he seems to have somehow found form, with five goals in the last five Premier League games, eight in all competitions so far in 2026, as well as 15 goals and two assists so far this season. I said we need at least 20 goals from him this season. He is well on his way, but if he maintains his 2026 form he could be closer to 25 in all competitions. It seems strange to say this considering that at times we have questioned what we have achieved, but when he scores 25 goals this season you have to say that despite all the reservations he has absolutely done the job. There is still a long way to go, but this is a positive sign.

However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows here. We should probably acknowledge that, even if we’re all feeling pretty happy this morning. For example, we shot ourselves in the foot even though the team was completely dominant in the first half. Tottenham offered nothing in the first 45 minutes, but they were on level terms after Rice’s uncharacteristic error. It’s a mystery to me what he was thinking when he tried to dribble the ball from behind, but as Arteta pointed out afterwards, his character to step up and then play another great game is a testament to his mentality. In my opinion, Trossard was also rather weak overall and I was surprised that he stayed on the pitch for so long. It just felt like he was flitting in and out of the game, with some of his shot selection attempts also looking pretty poor.

However, I don’t really want to dwell on these moments, not on a day that ultimately turned out to be very positive. Arsenal took the disappointment of not taking the lead at half-time and doubled their overall dominance from almost the first minute of the second half. That must be praised. And I would like to leave it at that for today. It was a great win; The team now have a week’s break before Chelsea are at home, meaning they can rest and prepare for another really tough game. I wasn’t feeling too well yesterday so didn’t do the Same Old Arsenal pod, but you can check it out here if you want to get more Arsenal content going. I know I will.