Two minutes left, 2-2, and Christian Eriksen crossed low. Gabriel, no one pressing, only had to put his foot through the ball but took a wild swipe and it sliced off his shin, corkscrewing upwards and over his shoulder. David Ospina was stranded. For the first time in the most relentless of games, time slowed, hearts stopped and people drew breath.
The ball continued on its parabola. Which side of the bar would it drop? Just over. First Gabriel, then around 35,800 others exhaled. There would be no defining moment that one side could grab and kick towards the title from and the other would take to their season’s grave. The best match of the season inspired flat feelings. Mauricio Pochettino rued “a big opportunity missed” while Arsène Wenger said he didn’t even know what to think about winning the league any more.
Had Gabriel’s slice gone in for a decisive own goal it might have summed up a contest where advantages were won and squandered, where error undermined effort, self-destruction reigned, and accomplished moments gave way to impetuous ones. But which you couldn’t, just couldn’t, take your eyes off.
Tottenham, with 26 shots, a manpower advantage for 35 minutes, and a lead going into the final quarter of an hour, will wake up thinking of their wastefulness. Arsenal, in control for a spell at 1-0, should agonise over how another mental lapse, Francis Coquelin’s red card, spoiled a good situation. The highlights shows will pore over referee Michael Oliver’s mistakes, and Harry Kane’s wondrous goal.
The fire and energy of the Pochettino edition of Spurs defined how the football would be played: fast, fierce, press and counter-press. Players flew about with the fury of moths trapped under a lampshade. It seemed, at some point, they’d have to slow. Then the fast-forward button was pressed.
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Arsenal were ahead at half-time but their two youngest players were on bookings and Wenger told Coquelin and Hector Bellerin to watch themselves. But Coquelin, seeing Kane escaping down the wing, jumped in, Kane tripped and Oliver flourished a second yellow, then a red. “I’m really sorry to the club, to the team and all the fans,” Coquelin said later. “The red card changed the game.”
Almost immediately after the dismissal, Arsenal defended poorly at a corner. The ball floated up when Erik Lamela’s shot was blocked and Toby Alderweireld volleyed in.
One-all became 2-1 within two minutes. Per Mertesacker had to share blame for Coquelin’s dismissal — his mistake in getting the wrong side of Kane put Coquelin in an invidious position — and he was daft in trying to shepherd a ball out of play with Kane and Dele Alli closing near the corner flag. A message in a bottle arrives quicker than Mertesacker. He was much too slow to protect the ball and Alli nicked it before Kane took over, dribbling back downfield to make a shooting angle then, by the edge of the box, wheeling and shooting, curling beautifully in.
In the minutes that followed, another Spurs goal felt inevitable but Kane sprayed an opportunity into the crowd and the downside of Pochettino’s young team — they’re so incessant that they don’t stop to think — was evident in the way they couldn’t find the strategies to make 11 v 10 count.
Beleaguered Wenger deserved credit. He made a positive substitution in introducing Olivier Giroud as a second striker and a tactic Arsenal tried to exploit all afternoon suddenly worked. It involved a reinvigorated Alexis Sanchez coming inside to sprint between Tottenham’s centre-backs and he escaped Moussa Dembele to do so and reach Bellerin’s fine pass before tucking an equaliser beyond Hugo Lloris.
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Lloris was beaten a little easily there. Ospina took the goalkeeping honours, answering those who doubt his ability to deputise for Petr Cech. Two reflex saves were heart-stopping. After 25 minutes, when Lamela diverted Kyle Walker’s centre from close range, he got down and across and his hand to it, instantly. After 57 minutes he saved with his midriff when Kane shot from a few feet out. Goal-line technology showed 99% of the ball crossed the line but that vital sliver had not.
Arsenal were still leading then. They’d survived being hemmed and harried and pressed during Spurs’ aggressive start then capitalised on a mistake to suggest they might restore the established order by leapfrogging their rivals in the table. Dier rushed in to win the ball from Aaron Ramsey but succeeded only in poking the ball to Danny Welbeck.
Welbeck, intelligently, found Bellerin on the far side of the box and the Spaniard passed sweetly for Ramsey to score with a delightful flick of the heel — one lovely, casual moment amid such raging action. Dier should have joined Coquelin in going off for a second booking. He pulled back and kicked Giroud to stop a break but Oliver mysteriously declined to caution him.
Bellerin was also, in the final moments, lucky to avoid a second booking for tugging Alli’s shirt. Wenger was disappointed with Coquelin and, of all the transgressions, Coquelin’s first booking was the most daft — handling when he fell on the ball to prevent a counter.
Kevin Wimmer thwarted Mesut Ozil with a saving tackle and Eriksen sliced wide, but neither side could score in stoppage time. The weather kept changing, as did the momentum, but these sides’ inability to assert themselves, title-wise, stayed the same.
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Tottenham: Lloris, Walker, Alderweireld, Wimmer, Rose (Davies 77min), Dier, Dembele (Son 81min), Lamela (Mason 67min), Alli, Eriksen, Kane
Arsenal: Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Paulista, Gibbs, Coquelin, Elneny (Giroud 74min), Ramsey, Ozil (Campbell 89min), Sanchez, Welbeck (Flamini 84min)
