Gunners seal points against our 10 men - on-the-whistle report

Our 13-game unbeaten run in the Premier League came to an end on Saturday afternoon as Arsenal won the north London derby against our 10 men at the Emirates.

After Harry Kane had scored a penalty to cancel out Thomas Partey’s 20th-minute opener, Gabriel Jesus restored the home side’s lead early in the second half before Emerson Royal was sent off for his challenge on Gabriel Martinelli just after the hour mark. Granit Xhaka’s goal shortly after sealed the win for the Gunners.

We made a slow start to the game, Hugo Lloris saving from Martinelli on three minutes as the hosts dominated early on and, although Richarlison brought a smart save out of Aaron Ramsdale 10 minutes later, Xhaka flashed a shot just wide before Arsenal went ahead in the 20th minute. Ben White laid the ball into the path of Partey, 22 yards from goal with time and space and he hit a curling right-foot drive which flew into the top corner.

Slowly though, we grew into the contest and levelled on 31 minutes. A swift counter-attack saw Heung-Min Son over-hit the final pass to Richarlison and it looked like the chance had gone. But we pressed Arsenal into a mistake, Xhaka giving the ball back to Richarlison who was then tripped by Gabriel for a penalty. Up stepped Kane, who coolly struck his spot-kick straight down the middle and past the diving Ramsdale, becoming the first player to score 100 away goals in the Premier League in the process.

Just three minutes after the restart, Arsenal were ahead again. Lloris couldn’t hold Bukayo Saka’s shot, the rebound hit Cristian Romero and bounced back to our captain but somehow the ball squirmed underneath him and Jesus was there to tap in from close range. It could have been 3-1 shortly after, but Jesus headed wide when unmarked eight yards out, however our task of getting back into the game got a whole lot more difficult when Royal was given a straight red card for a challenge on Martinelli deep inside Arsenal’s half.

We fell further behind on 67 minutes when Xhaka drove home an angled left-foot shot and, with a busy spell of games coming up, we then made all five of our substitutions within a four-minute spell - including four at once - to inject fresh legs into the team for the final stages. Among them was Oliver Skipp, returning from a lengthy injury absence for his first Spurs appearance of the season, a bright spot on a difficult afternoon.

In other team news, Antonio Conte made three changes to the team that started last time out against Leicester City on 17 September. Royal, Romero and Richarlison came back in for Davinson Sanchez, Ryan Sessegnon and Dejan Kulusevski, who was not named in the squad. It was a first north London derby for summer arrivals Richarlison, Clement Lenglet and Ivan Perisic, plus Yves Bissouma, Djed Spence and Pape Matar Sarr on the bench.

'You have to be clinical'

Antonio told SPURSPLAY after the game: "It’s a difficult day because in the first half, we felt the possibility to win the game. We had the possibility to kill the game in the first half and you have to know very well in this type of game, you have to be clinical. I repeat, if I have to complain about something, it’s the first half. I think we had many chances and we made mistakes in the last passes, big mistakes. We must be disappointed for this reason. Every time we played the ball and overcame their pressure, we could hurt them. Instead, we kept them alive, then in the second half we conceded the second goal. We could do much better but, you know very well, when you concede a goal, you can always do something better. Then, after a few minutes, the red card killed the game."

Match data

Goals: Arsenal – Partey 20, Jesus 49, Xhaka 67; Spurs – Kane 31 (pen).

Yellow cards: Arsenal – Saliba, Martinelli; Spurs - Dier.

Red card: Spurs - Royal.

Referee: Anthony Taylor.

Venue: Emirates Stadium.

Weather: Sunny intervals, moderate breeze, 19 degrees.

Attendance: 60,270.