Spurs 0-1 Arsenal | Ange’s verdict: “Defeat is disappointing and painful”

Ange Postecoglou spoke about the need for the team to ‘execute better’ in the final third after another good performance went unrewarded - this time in the first north London derby of the campaign.

Once again, the match statistics read well - 64% possession in our favour, twice as many passes, 15 efforts at goal to Arsenal’s seven - but the most important one of all went the visitors’ way when Gabriel headed home Bukayo Saka’s corner for the only goal of the game on 64 minutes.

We had chances without overly stretching David Raya, who made saves from Dejan Kulusevski and Micky van de Ven, while home debutant Dominic Solanke looped a header just wide and Deki fired inches over in added time.

It wasn’t to be though, and it’s been similar stories against Leicester City (1-1) and Newcastle (1-2) - control of the game, chances created and not the reward our play perhaps deserves.

“It’s disappointing, obviously,” said Ange on our Review Show. “It’s a big game for us, for our supporters and obviously not winning and losing that game is disappointing and painful.

“It's pretty similar to the other games this year. We've controlled the game, we’ve played in the right areas, we just didn't execute again in that final third like we should have. We had some good chances, we had opportunities to create more good chances and against good teams, if you don't do that... and then we switched off for a set piece and you pay the price.”

Asked if he felt we deserved more for our endeavours so far, Ange responded: “I've always felt you get what you deserve in this game, and obviously we need to do more to get what we want, but there's no doubt in all four games that we've dominated in the way I want us to, controlled games and created more opportunities than the opposition - but that's meaningless unless you actually execute as well, and we’ve got to execute better.”