MANCHESTER CITY won the North London derby as Arsenal and Spurs cut each others’ throats to fall four points behind Pep Guardiola’s champions.
A full-blooded Emirates encounter ended all-square as Tottenham carried out Ange Postecolglu’s pre-match threat to “scare the life” out of Mikel Arteta’s men.
Twice Arsenal led through a Cristian Romero own-goal and a Bukayo Saka penalty.
And twice they were pegged back by Spurs skipper Son Heung-Min as both teams maintained their unbeaten start to the season.
With Arsenal pressing like mad things right from the off, it was a match played at 100mph with absolutely no time for anyone to breathe, let alone catch their breath.
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Gabriel Jesus was on the wrong end of an early reducer from Cristian Romero and clashed with Yves Bissouma when he responded with a late challenge of his own.
Destiny Udogie saw yellow when he ploughed through the back of Bukayo Saka and was joined in Rob Jones’ notebook by Martin Odegaard for waving an imaginary card at the ref.
And that Udogie booking was to play a huge part in Arsenal’s opening goal when the Spurs full-back stood off Saka and allowed him far too much room to get a shot off.
That 26th minute effort was flying wide of the far post until Romero decided to stick out his left leg and watched in horror as the ball struck his knee and flew into his own-goal with Guglielmo Vicario diving the other way.
The Spurs keeper had already pulled off vital saves from Jesus and Eddie Nketiah to keep his team in the game as Arsenal threatened to run riot.
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But he should have had no chance when Jesus robbed James Maddison on the edge of his own area but fired over with only Vicario to beat.
And that miss came back to haunt Arsenal when captain Son levelled just before half-time.
David Raya had already pulled off a wonder save to deny Tottenham new boy Brennan Johsnon when he pushed Dejan Kulusevski’s looping cross back into play when he probably should have tipped it out for a corner.
And though the Spanish keeper was able to block Johnson’s 42nd minute shot, Arsenal were never able to clear the danger before Maddison pulled back for Son to convert with a smart first-time finish.
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Having enjoyed the lion’s share of first-half possession, the visitors would argue that equaliser was the very least they deserved for their bold approach.
But just nine minutes into the second-half they were behind again when the unfortunate Romero blocked Ben White’s shot on the turn with an outstretched arm and Saka scored from the spot following a lengthy VAR review.
Yet once again Arsenal were unable to hold onto their lead and within seconds of regaining the lead they had conceded again.
Jorginho had only just replaced Declan Rice as a half-time sub when he inexplicably tried to pull off a drag back when he was the last man back.
But his attempts at being clever backfired disastrously when he lost the ball to Maddison and Son was free to pick his spot for his second goal of the afternoon.
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