Mikel Arteta Make Super Sunday Sober for Jose Mourinho's Spurs

Mikel Arteta penned down his name as the first Arsenal manager to avoid consecutive defeats in their opening three North London derbies on Sunday evening.

It was also another chance for the in-form Martin Odegaard to again score an Arsenal goal after doing so to get his first when we visited Athens on Thursday night.

One of the major talking points before the big game was the omission of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from the matchday squad. As we were made to know, the captain had to be dropped as a disciplinary move for arriving late for the game.

As weird as such looked to some who questioned the decision to leave out a vital player from a major game, it was a good move which will instill sanity in other members of the team. If the captain could be punished, who can't?

Alexandre Lacazette replaced him upfront with the armband on while Cedric and Emile Smith Rowe took the places of Hector Bellerin and William.

The match did not look as it should be because we dominated too much in possession. No one would have expected that calibre of an encounter to be that one-sided. It was nevertheless to our advantage as we pushed on to try to break the heavy wall mounted by our opponents.

We did not create so much chances despite our fluency. One notable one was Smith Rowe's shot that got stopped by the crossbar. He followed that up by setting up Lacazette who blew it wide.

Arsenal started to fade gradually and during the little time that the game reversed with Spurs stealing the moment, we were hit with the opening goal slotted to the bottom right by Erik Lamela who had come on as a sub to fill the void left by the injured Son.

Their shine did not take long. We got our spark back shortly after that and Cedric went close to scoring the equaliser, no thanks to the crossbar for a second time.

Odegaard scored his second Arsenal goal, his first in the Premier League having received a cross from Kieran Tierney. Toby Alderweireld deflected it in. It was 1-1, both goals coming from men with the number 11 jersey.

That late goal in the first half boosted us to do more in the next half. Lacazette had a chance which he didn't connect to but for being brought down in the box by Davison Sanchez, the referee gave a penalty which VAR also validated. The Frenchman converted well and we were ahead.

Tottenham got reduced to ten men and it was Lamela who turned culprit for elbowing Tierney. A second yellow saw him sent off but his absence did not really show that much as the visitors still made impact.

It was a scary scene when Harry Kane seemed to have equalised through a header but thank goodness it was an offside rightly adjudged. He a played a freekick that hit the post and when Sanchez went on the rebound, Gabriel was there to clear the danger.

We managed the tense closing periods to ensure we maintained our lead. It was well achieved. Victory gotten. 2-1 the final score.

Arsenal will take ON Olympiacos in the Euripa League last-16 tie at the Emirates Stadium on Thursday. We go into that tie with a 3-1 advantage.