Football News

At around 3pm on Sunday, it looked like Tottenham Hotspur may be set to endure a record-breaking defeat at the hands of Arsenal.

A spirited second half performance, while it couldn't prevent the defeat, did at least make the scoreline much more respectable however, with goals from Cristian Romero and Heung-min Son leading to a mere narrow 3-2 defeat in the north London derby.

Here's Tottenham's best and worst players in the defeat to arch rivals Arsenal, according to esteemed player ratings.

Cristian Romero's rather odd decision to play as a de-facto striker against Arsenal, surprisingly, hugely benefited his team on Sunday.

The Argentine hit the crossbar in the first half, got his side back into the game at the start of the second half by scoring a well-deserved goal. After cutting out a David Raya clearance, Romero the side-footed into the bottom corner like a prime Gabriel Batistuta.

Along with threatening in the final third, Romero — despite conceding three goals — actually didn't do too badly in the defensive third either. The centre-back won a very impressive 11 duels during the game, and completed 97% of his passes too.

Tottenham fans feared the worst when they saw Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg's name in the starting lineup on Sunday, and that's exactly what they got just 15 minutes into the game when the midfielder headed into the back of his own net to gift Arsenal the lead.

Hojbjerg's performance levels didn't really improve much thereafter either as he was regularly chasing shadows in the middle of the park.

A bad day at the office.

The Wales full-back had the unenviable task of going up against Bukayo Saka on the flank on Sunday and, as expected, he struggled up against Arsenal's 'Starboy'.

Davies was bested by Saka

Declan Rice Tottenham Hotspur David Raya Bukayo Saka Cristian Romero