Dele Alli’s north London derby lasted only 45 minutes as Tottenham Hotspur were well-beaten by their arch-rivals at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
The Lilywhites’ winless run in the Premier League continued at the hands of Arsenal after they leaked three goals for a third successive defeat, whilst their creative problems in attack were equally on show.
A quickfire 24 minutes saw Emile Smith Rowe, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bukayo Saka find the net before half-time, compounding Nuno Santo to yet another loss.
The Portuguese head coach was evidently frustrated at the break and following the team talk, he made two substitutions, in which Alli was replaced by the more defensively sound Oliver Skipp.
It helped shore up their leaky backline but did their attacking options no favours whatsoever, not that the Englishman was any better.
As per SofaScore, the 25-year-old midfielder was graded as Spurs’ worst player with a 5.9 rating. He managed only 24 touches and 13 passes, both were lower than that of goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who spent more time picking the ball out of his net than with it at his feet.
Alli, one of the two more attacking options in the engine room, failed to drive possession forward into the Gunners’ half as he did not register a single successful dribble from two attempts, nor did he create a key chance or fire a shot at goal.
The £27m-rated Spurs star was also weak in his battles, winning just one of five duels (20%) up against Mikel Arteta’s midfield, who were wholly dominant in the first half, that’s on top of losing possession eight times from those 24 touches.
That’s once every three touches and once every 5.6 minutes.
“Barely made an impact on the match,” claimed football.london reporter Alasdair Gold, who handed him a 3/10 in his post-match ratings column. The joint-lowest in the starting XI.
Overall, it was a complete passenger-like display from Alli, so it’s no wonder he was hooked over some of the other members of the squad.
Nuno has trusted him to start all six of their league games but in return, he’s only contributed one goal, via Transfermarkt. Therefore, the Portuguese has every right to feel badly betrayed after that result.
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