Eze steals the show with a hat-trick as Arsenal brush aside rivals Spurs with a 4-1 victory

0:06You're listening to the Sky Sports Premier League podcast. Welcome along. The North London derby took centre stage on Super Sunday this week as Arsenal went up against their neighbours Tottenham. Here is how the game finished.

0:30The pure, undiluted joy of the humble superstar and his proud, proud club.

0:42Eze's hat-trick.

0:47And Arsenal's glorious victory. Arsenal again. One more derby triumph. One more substantial stride towards the big prize of which they dream. Leandro Trusser set them on their way. After which Eze took over. but goals just either side of the half-time interval, and 15 minutes from time, the Hatchery goal to crown it. Richarlison having given Tottenham only momentary hope. Yeah, it's a brilliant day for Arsenal. They've won a derby, they've won a big match in a big weekend where others have faltered, but they've also demonstrated the strength of their squad. No centre-forward, no Odegaard, the captain, but Eze, Saka, Trossard, Mourinho all stepped up, along with all others that have contributed.

1:42It was a brilliant day and a good performance. Woeful as Spurs were, Miquel Arteta's men were fantastic and fully deserved this victory. So for Tottenham, so close to home, the first away defeat of this Premier League campaign. For Arsenal, a four-straight North London derby trial for the first time since Adams and Roecastle, Winterburn, Merson and Smith 36 years ago and more. And those guys were champions. A six-point lead at the top. Arsenal have conquered their neighbourhood now to conquer the land. Arsenal 4, Spurs 1. Thank you, Peter. Thierry, it's a 4-1 win in a North London derby. A hat-trick for summer signing Ibera Eze.

2:27Arsenal go six points clear at the top of the Premier League table. We're not even into December yet, but do they feel inevitable? That sounds great. Still a long way to go, but one thing I want to say is that a lot of people were talking about Gabriel not playing, and we can talk about, obviously, Kaya Versen being here, Gabriel Jesus. We can talk about Odegaard not being here. We can talk about Sauron Martin not being here, and not coming on, sorry, and the rest. You know you have a good team when you can do this type of thing, when people are not going to mention that at the end. and let's not, you know, we have a great squad.

3:02I said it before the game, let's embrace it. A lot of people were talking about who was missing. Let's talk about what the team did today. And if you want to win the league, this is how you win the league. No matter who's on the field. A lot of money spent this summer. Zubemende may be the headline in all of that, but there was a bit of chat about whether Arsenal had bought strongly enough. Does a game like today and squad selection, team selection like today, demonstrate why it was money well spent? Find a way to win. We all know Zubimendi is a good player. If you watch Spain, you will know that.

3:33If you watched him play before in La Liga, you would have known that. But like I said, you know, Joqueles, we need a nine. That's what everyone was saying. We played without a nine. And I would say also that you play without a nine and you score four goals in open play. And your ten suddenly comes into the picture because your nine drops. So you get the nine dropping for the ten to go in. and by the way if I was Martin with the guard I said it, this guy is a 10 for me however you want to look at him he's not a winger, he's a 10 he needs to be in the middle of the park, he shot it tonight so that's what you want healthy competition, that's good we'll talk a lot about Arsenal and we will absolutely talk about Ibera Eze and we'll hear from him very shortly as well there's a very quick word on Spurs because we'll cover them at more depth a little bit later on but a really disappointing performance, which we will talk about, apart from the fact that Eberre Eze is waiting to talk to Patrick Davidson.

4:34Eberre, has football given you many feelings as good as that one? Yeah, that's a good one, man. Enjoyable day. Happy to help the team and to win today especially, you know. Every boyhood Arsenal fan, every fan still left in this stadium would dream of doing what you've just done. how special is it what does it feel like special man um i'm grateful again man so i prayed for i prayed for it today man i had to reckon i got it today so i'm grateful to god man did you did you have that feeling today i saw you at the end i saw you after your hatchet goal kind of pointed to this guy did you have a that sense today that someone had a plan for you someone was looking down at you that was a prayer today that was a prayer today i had to and god gave it to me so again that's faith man and i know you're all arsenal your family and i believe you're over there by that over and over again sign so who else is here from the other family to enjoy that all my family's here man again so it makes it even more special to do it in front of them and of course had the summer worked out differently you could have had a different shirt on today let's not speak about that i thought you might say that pick of the goals they're all good man i don't know maybe maybe the second one man that was my favorite why Just the timing of it, it was just the right time and yeah man, honestly it's a special, all of them are good for me because I know that I've been working on it, the process to get in those positions so yeah it's worked out.

5:59The senior hat-trick as well I think. Yeah it is, again. Two quite a few times, not a bad time to get the hat-trick. Yeah, yeah a special one as I said, well I can't explain this one today man. Well done, look you're the player of the match as well, first Arsenal player to score a hat-trick against Tottenham in nearly 50 years, player of the match, There's a little match ball down there under your foot. So the old mantelpiece is going to be a bit more packed. Well done. Not bad, man. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Cheers, man. Well done. The bearer Eze says that he prayed for a hat-trick today and his faith was rewarded.

6:30And he talks a lot about how much of a central part of his personality that is. But can he, Lez, as someone who knows him as a person as well as a player, can he have that faith in himself as well? Yeah, listen, I'm hoping so. You know, there's a lot of people that had a lot of faith in Eze and he's gone on to do what he said. I said at the start of the show, I feel like since he's come to Arsenal, he's had the handbrake on a little bit. I know there's so much more to come from him. I didn't actually want to see it today, but I did. And he showed what he's capable of. And I said, you know, he needs to sort of embrace it.

7:00He needs to come here and say, I'm the man. I've come here to do this. This is what I've come here to do. And we saw it today. He scored a hat-trick. I mean, let's get this right. Arsenal scored four goals against... And they didn't get out of third gear. Tottenham were that bad today. It was embarrassing to watch. I was halfway through this game. I was hoping I could go in the box with Michael McIntyre and the rest of them. I didn't want to watch anymore. You can't come to Arsenal, a North London derby, and not put everything on the line. I think the manager got his tactics wrong today. He came here to be negative and to sit back and try and hold Arsenal off.

7:36And I think that just sent out the wrong message to the players because they just couldn't get out of gear. Arsenal scored the first goal and that was it. Tottenham were done. knew it was going to be a lot more. We're going to talk lots more about that performance by Spurs, but of course we're also going to be talking about that Arsenal performance and what that means in terms of the table, because Arsenal have not just benefited from their own performance and result this weekend, but also results elsewhere have gone their way. Bournemouth drew 2-0 with West Ham, Brighton 2-1, Chelsea got the win, which means that they're second in the table, as we'll see in a second.

8:07Fulham beat Sunderland 1-0, Liverpool going down 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest, and Manchester to City losing 2-1 at Newcastle. Big results in terms of who we might have thought at the start of the season would also be title challengers. Wolves nil, Crystal Palace 2. And then earlier today, Aston Villa beat Leeds 2-1, followed by Arsenal's 4-1 victory against Spurs. There's still a big game for Manchester United against Everton to come on Monday Night Football. But if you want to watch highlights of what we've seen so far this weekend, just scan the QR code that you can see on your screen right now.

8:38And this is what all of that means with one game left to go in this match week. Wolves still with just two points from their opening games and then it starts to get a bit congested. Leeds stay inside the bottom three. They kicked off today for the first time inside the relegation places and they end the day there as well with 11 points level with West Ham. Into the top half of the table where defeat for Tottenham means they are in ninth place. That coupled with Aston Villa's win that sends them into the top four. There you go, above Crystal Palace. They're just behind Manchester City, Chelsea and now Arsenal, who extend their lead to six points at the top of the table.

9:19And after 12 games, their goal difference is at plus 18. A league of their own, the BAFTA winning show returns for its final series. Outrageous challenges, laugh-out-loud moments, plenty of surprises. A new episode every Wednesday on SkyMax. Ibera Eze pretty much in a league of his own today for Arsenal at the Emirates with their 4-1 win over Spurs in which he got the hat-trick. Really impressive performance from the boyhood Arsenal fan. The boy who was on Arsenal's books as a youth player left to rebuild his career. Spotted by Les Ferdinand at QPR and now back at Arsenal.

10:03Hi there, former England cricket captains Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain here to tell you that we're taking the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast down under for the ashes. As England look to win in Australia for the first time in 15 years, we'll be out there to analyse the action and discuss all the big talking points. We'll also have daily episodes during each Test match to keep you right up to date with what's going on. That's the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Sky Sports Premier League Podcast. Let's get more analysis of the game and return to the studio.

10:43Marino. Oh, it's lovely. It's Trossard. Trossard twisted and scoring. 1-0 to the Arsenal. It's come out to Declan Rice. And Eze in two! It's heading Arsenal's way on Derby Day. Timbukh. And Eze in no time! And Ebereche Eze can barely disguise his glee. Trossar, Ebereche Eze! Derby Day hat-trick! A match ball he comprise forever and a day. North London is his. A dominant team performance from Arsenal, but a great individual performance from Eberechi as a Jamie. Yeah, it was fantastic. I must be honest, I think in the summer when Arsenal signed him and I had my Liverpool hat on, and I looked at the signings Arsenal made, and besides Jokeres, it felt like a lot of them were to strengthen the squad really.

11:53So where Arsenal had problems the year before was when Saka was out, so they brought Marowiecki. Old regard was out, they got Eze. One of the centre-backs was missing, so they got a couple of centre-backs. It was only really Jokeres who felt he was going to go into the team and if I'm being honest, I think if Havertz was 100 % fit, Havertz would probably be the centre-forward in this team, I think. So when Eze came, I thought, OK, maybe it's not a game-changer and Les knows him a lot better than me. he still said earlier on the show, there's still more to come. But then we've still seen some of his highlights this season.

12:22There were still a few great goals in there and Neri goes and scores a hectic. So apologies. I think we've certainly undervalued the importance that sign-in was because he looks like he could make the real difference for Arsenal this season and go on and win the title. And apart from the sort of skill in scoring the goals and his overall contribution to the game, the composure, Thierry, was admirable for Meza. Well, if you looked at Sori Palace before, you would have seen that composure. You know he has that composure. He's calm. The way he speaks is the same way. But what I like with him is the way he, in the game today, he finds a way to be in and around the box, especially on one of the goals.

12:58You will see he pulls away from everybody to make sure he can have time to execute. And we all know he can finish. I mean, I know he's with us now, but when you look at him at Palace and the way they reposition him under Mateta, suddenly as a 10 he started to see the game a different way with a guy that can play for him and obviously today was different because he didn't have a proper nine with him but that's why I think it was easier for him to get in the box today because he didn't have the presence of a nine. He was a nine at times. Yeah, there was nobody getting in his way. It was him and he took the goals so well, Les.

13:34Yeah, he did. You know, the first one we see here just gets himself into the position. As Timber does really well here, goes into the gap, crosses it. This is not a great clearance from Danso, but here shows his foot movement and then strikes the ball lovely. VAR did have a look at the Arsenal players. There's a few of them offside here and whether or not they were in Vicario's eye lane. I feel like we should look at every decision individually, But I feel like this would be a bigger talking point if this had been a narrow 1-0 victory. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's no way you can't look at this and say they don't impede his eyesight.

14:12Look at it here, look. There's no way that doesn't impede his eyesight. But, you know, we're not up in VHR. There's someone else up there who doesn't think it does. I don't see how not. If you go back to that goal, is Zubi Mendy making a run? Yeah, look. And your number 10 shooting, look at them. You have no nines. So that's why all that talk all the time that, yes, you need a nine, like you need a goalkeeper to play football, but it doesn't mean that if you don't have a nine, you can't score. As it's been shown there, is Zubimendi making a run in behind first? Yeah, and as we saw there, Vakario saying that he couldn't see.

14:46He was saying he was unsighted. That made it 2-0 to Arsenal. And then Eze got his second and Arsenal's third. Yeah, just after half-time again. And again, very similar. This can happen a lot through the game. Arsenal had that number. Spurs on that right side. And the player inside dragged the two central midfield players over. The side of the pitch. Bentancourt. Pelinho nowhere to be seen on the edge of the box. And it's a wonderful finish. Of course it is from Eze. But this happened continually in the first half. And this is a problem with the system that they played. The space is always on the outside of the two central midfield players.

15:24And I'm sure that's something that Arsenal would have spoken about before the game. and it's worth an absolute treat. Look at the position again of Eze. At the very beginning, he's your nine. And you know who frees him? The run of Declan Rice. Again, you're holding it fielder. If he doesn't make that run, he's intelligent enough to know that he has to go the other way to pull away and then to finish. But he's the nine at the very beginning, once again. That's his left foot, his right... The first one with his right foot, that with his left foot and that was equally as good a finish as the first one on his right foot.

15:51He said in his interview with Pat that he prayed for a hat-trick and that was it. the first hat-trick in a North London derby since December the 23rd 1978. That was a lot of prayers, I guess, because, you know, since 78, no one has done that before. You know, you have a lot of great guys that have played in that derby. When you think of guys like the late one, Kane, myself, Jan Wright, you know, I can name a lot of strikers, you know, people will be upset and I forgot some, but it's actually number 10 but for me on the on the night look at where he is that's your nine but I think that's a really interesting point it comes back to something that you were saying I think across the course of last season and even across the summer Jamie which is that number nine wasn't necessarily the answer to Arsenal's problems it was about creating chances elsewhere on the pitch yeah it was I mean I never felt it was always this sort they needed a goal score of course you need to score more goals certainly last season to compete with Liverpool but Arsenal in general play didn't create enough that was a problem for them last season so no matter who your striker is if you're not creating chances for him he's not there to finish but he's made a difference with that and even this season when we go back to very early on if you go back to the game at Anfield that was almost like the Arsenal of last season very strong defensively but not really looking like scoring going forward and I don't I don't know if I can't remember exactly but was Newcastle the next game after that.

17:23I think Eze came in basically rather than there was a lot of criticism around Mourinho playing I think at Anfield instead of Eze. Eze comes on late into the game and then I think I'm certain Eze plays at Newcastle away and you just felt like there was a difference. And it just feels like his introduction, his sign, which I felt to be fair would just be something that would be to sort of back up Ode Gard, Ode Gard's out at the moment but as you said before, Ode Gard's got a real fight. And you know that, I thought differently. I said to myself first and foremost he's a 10 and Martin van der Garde will have competition.

17:57And when you had a big club, as it should be, you would have competition in your time, in my time. You have an hour. If you don't score, Kanu comes on, Wilton comes on. At the very beginning I had to find a space to make sure that I could make myself available and make sure that I could perform for the team. But like I said, for me, he's a 10. I'll say it again. How much in terms of that Arsenal overall performance, and how impressive was it, given that we will come to the opposition that Spurs put up later on in the show? I like the combination of, and I mean, it's a novice one, people will say that, but Bukayo Saka and Timba, the way they attack and they defend together, it's second to none.

18:39Everything came from the right and ended up going to Eze or to León de Troyes. Everything goes there. And the way they do defend also together, their activity. It's like when you see one, you see the other one, regardless of where they are on the field. That combination is lethal. With those additions to the Arsenal squad in the summer, it was sort of expected that Leandro Trossard would be playing a slightly reduced role. And yet that's eight starts in a row for him. And I know there are injuries in that Arsenal squad and players who've been unavailable, but he scored big goals in that time. he has and whenever I looked at Arsenal I always felt left wing was a real weak area for them whether it was sort of Martinelli or Trossard I never quite felt they were at the standard in terms of winning the league I actually thought Eze may play a lot of football there one of the reasons why he came in but he's been absolutely brilliant and you know what he's been really good ever since he came to the club I think he came in in January a couple of years ago and he's always been that type of player got your goals I think Gary mentioned in commentary I mean you look at that space again in the middle of the pitch I think Gary mentioned in commentary that run that I Lundberg, Freddie Lundberg with me.

19:47And again, Freddie Lundberg was the type of player who wasn't so amazing with the ball, but it was the penetrating runs, it was what he did off the ball. And he basically, I think a few years ago with you Thierry, won you the title with so many goals? Yeah, he did, he did, the 1-2. And he's doing something similar this season. You'd have liked that ball from Marina though, wouldn't you? Oh, that's for sure. You know, but we go back to the attacking point of view, he's outstanding. Marino turning, seeing Trussell finishing, obviously a little deflection. But if you let a player of that quality, like Marino, turn around in the stadium and then just pick someone just like that and allow someone to run, that's what he was talking about, about how embarrassing the performance of Tottenham was.

20:29But, you know, I'm not complaining. So a 4-1 win for Arsenal, hat-trick for Eze, and they go six points clear at the top of the table. But we do need to put that into the context of the Tottenham performance. So here's Vicario with Pat. Guglielmo, as a Tottenham player, is that a performance that you feel honestly really bad about? Yeah. Very bad night for us. First of all, we have to apologise for the people that support us every day and they travel to expect to watch a fight because today we didn't fight. As a collective, we didn't fight. And that's not negotiable to compete in a football match, especially at this level and we didn't do as a team but now is a tough night it's a very bad defeat but we have to stick together because we know what we we have to address this this kind of things now we have a big night again on Wednesday we need to stick together and to believe much more in ourselves because because tonight we didn't show anything that's what we normally are capable of.

21:38So we need to have bright brains in this moment. I know the emotions are high, especially when you lose a derby in this way, like that. But we need to be cool heads and apologise to people that support us in the travel today, because we cannot put on place a performance like that. I'm sure at home in the stands Tottenham fans would be asking, this day of all days, why as a group didn't you fight? I don't know. I don't know which is the answer. Probably many things. I think we waited a little bit too much to get into the game. We were a little bit way too passive but the game plan we had prepared was a little bit different.

22:25Probably, I don't know, we didn't have a... We didn't recognise some situation to put pressure on them and to fight. And to fight because today we didn't fight. So we have to apologise first of all for this. But then, like I said, we need to stick together. We have to reflect, we have to analyse this game, move on. Because of ways that we have another big night. So do you think it's a performance related to the slightly different tactical set-up, the five at the back, maybe not doing it as often? Or today for you was it more about character, mentality? It doesn't change nothing if we play five at the back, four at the back, two at the back.

23:02There are not negotiable things in football, like fight every day, fight every jewel. Try to win, try to put your body and to win some fouls. And I think in that aspect today we didn't play our game. So then you can speak about every tactics, every build-up, every situation. but if you don't put as a collective performance in terms of aggressiveness and this kind of stuff, it's tough to compete at this level. Today we didn't show it, so we have to apologise for this. Then the tactical stuff hasn't got an impact on this game. For me, it makes no sense speak about this. It's just about the mentality we have to put in every game, in every single Premier League game.

23:50I just wanted to ask you about one goal in particular. the second goal, perhaps it's no excuse when you've beaten so heavily by your rivals, but was your view blocked? I think probably in the way that the game gone couldn't have changed anything, but I think some interpretation sometimes is they say something that I saw the goal is allowed for people be in front of the goalkeeper, there were three people in front of me, so of course they impact me, but We didn't lose for that, but it's just the fact that probably in some situations, in the decision, they have to be more clear. Thank you for your honesty.

24:27Thank you. Well, I know you've already seen that incident, but I just wondered what you made of that interview, Les. I think he did the same thing against Chelsea. Was it Chelsea? He came out and he was the one that apologised for the performance. And when they came here today, five at the back, you look at it and you think to yourself, OK, if you can perform like you performed against PSG, because we saw that, and they had a go. It wasn't a negative five at the back. It was a front thought, we're going to go and have a go, we're going to go impress people. They came here and they just sat back and allowed Arsenal to come after wave after wave after wave of attack.

25:05And like I said, Arsenal didn't even get out of third gear. Let's not say this was a five-star performance. The scoreline's five-star, but it wasn't a five-star performance from Arsenal. They didn't have to. It was in third gear and there was no fight. there was no bike, this is North London, but you're expecting a little bit of spark, you're expecting a little bit of something. We spoke about it at the start, we said, you know, Arsenal have got three players who've never played in a North London derby before, Tottenham probably had one. But there was nothing, there was nothing, you know, we started the show saying, you know, at the start of the week I was thinking about this game, nothing that those players did out there felt like a North London derby to me.

25:43Jamie, does it make a difference that they changed the set-up or is it the way that the players performed within that structure? I wouldn't look at the actual playing five at the back so much. I think the one negative so far under Thomas Frank is, can he go from being a pragmatic coach and making it difficult for the opposition, as he's tried to do here, it hasn't worked. Let's not forget, Arsenal are a fantastic team and Tottenham's record here is horrendous. No matter who the manager is, no matter who the Arsenal team is, it's more like you're thinking how are they going to score a goal how are they going to win the game now away from home they've scored a lot of goals this season the most in the Premier League but again I keep going back to the underlying numbers and some people don't like it you know chances created or their XG it's very low and it's very poor and they've had to score an absolute probably one of the goals of the season and that was the only thing that happened in the game and sometimes we've all played in games like that where you go away from home to a tough place you don't create nothing but you could even after watching the first five minutes of that game, I think you're probably looking at it thinking, what are they going to do here?

26:50What's the plan to actually hurt Arsenal? And that has not just been in this game. It's not a one-off that. I watched them against Chelsea when Vicario came out and apologised again. Didn't look like scoring a goal in the game. And that is the problem for every manager who goes from a team like Brentford, Thomas Frank, and we all love him. He does fantastic. Then making that jump to a top team. you've got to have more than just trying to stop the opposition and that's not having a gobbled Thomas Frank what I'm saying is the managers who manage at the top and win the biggest trophies they're there for the reason they're the best they're elite they're special and the reason they are special is because they can coach teams to be difficult to beat at times but they can also coach teams to go and win games and that is the big difference between managers at a good level in the Premier League and managers who want to manage at the top level And if you don't get that right, you're not going to be in a job that long.

27:42Can I just add? The early signs for Thomas Frank were really good. Because when he first went in, and like I said, the game against PSG, the game against Man City. But isn't that playing to his strength? So he's playing against a team who are probably better than his team, and he's going to make it difficult for them. He's tried to do that today, and it hasn't worked. They get that. But those two games, I still felt Tottenham tried to have a go. Today, I just didn't feel like they tried to have a go at all. I don't know what the change of mentality is there. For me, to go back to the game, I know you guys passed a bit of the point that I want to make, but it's not the back five that shocked me.