Daily Mail

Tottenham Hotspur have been hit with a suspended ban on selling tickets to a European away match after fans were found to have made Nazi salutes during their Champions League clash with Eintracht Frankfurt.

UEFA has slapped the Premier League side with a €30,000 (£26,200) fine and issued the ban for 'the racist and/or discriminatory behaviour of its supporters'.

The ban on selling tickets is suspended for a year. Spurs were also fined €2,250 (£1,966) euros for the throwing of objects. Tottenham won the tie 2-0 to secure a place in the last-16.

Daily Mail Sport understands Spurs have identified the three fans involved and have subsequently issued bans.

Tottenham released a statement reading: 'The Club has been informed of sanctions handed down to us by UEFA following the utterly abhorrent conduct of a small number of individuals at our recent Champions League away match in Frankfurt.

'The Club has cooperated fully with UEFA's investigation, as well as with German police on the night and, subsequently, the Met Police. We can confirm that all three individuals found to be making Nazi salutes towards Eintracht Frankfurt fans have been identified and have received indefinite bans under the Club’s Sanctions and Banning Policy.

'The Club stands firmly against all forms of discrimination and has therefore taken the strongest possible action. The disgusting behaviour of a minority of so-called fans on the night is in no way reflective of the values of our Club and its supporters.'

A UEFA statement read: The CEDB (Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body) has decided: - To fine Tottenham Hotspur €30,000 and to ban Tottenham Hotspur from selling tickets to its away supporters for the next one (1) UEFA competition match, for the racist and/or discriminatory behaviour of its supporters. Said ban from selling tickets to its away supporters is suspended for a probationary period of one (1) year, starting from the date of the present decision.

'- To fine Tottenham Hotspur €2,250 for throwing of objects.'

Things have now got so bad at Tottenham that the Premier League have started lampooning them. This morning a clip has been running on the league's own social media feeds of a free-kick from Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario going straight out of play at the other end of the field with not a team-mate in sight at Fulham.

Whether the Premier League should be using their own feeds to take the mickey out of member clubs is a point worth debating and it's worth noting it has subsequently been deleted.

But nevertheless the moment did rather sum up Tottenham under their new coach Igor Tudor. Directionless, hopeless and lost.

It was bad under Thomas Frank and he did have to go as Spurs drifted towards the bottom three. But Tottenham have undoubtedly got worse in two games under Tudor and one wonders now whether the club will have a decision to make if they crash and burn again at home to Crystal Palace on Thursday.

Does that sound dramatic and sensationalist after two games? It does, rather. But, equally, can they let this go on?

Thus far Tudor has shown absolutely no sign of moving Tottenham forwards and the truth is that if they play like they did for the opening hour at Craven Cottage many more times between now and May then they will in all likelihood go down.

The worrying thing for Tottenham fans is that Tudor doesn't look as though he is remotely in control. Possibly as a consequence, he is already rather wildly blaming everybody but himself.

Last week he suggested the players bequeathed him by Frank were not fit enough. That's an old one and it's always hard to believe. Then, after his team surrendered by the Thames yesterday, he turned his fire on his own players, the referee and indeed the opposition.

So just a fortnight in the job and Tudor already has the whole of English football thrown under the bus without the security of a couple of decent results to bolster his own credibility.

This is often the way it is with interim managers. They know they aren't sticking around long so they feel at liberty to fire bullets without consequence.

But Tudor has a group of players to manage, motivate and organise. And if the Croatian isn't prepared to show any kind of accountability for what has happened on his watch so far then how can he seriously expect his players to show any?

The longer the mess of the 2025-26 Tottenham season goes on, the worse it gets. If Tudor comes out of Thursday's game without improvement, somebody will have to ask whether his appointment was just another in a long list of damaging mistakes.

Raya now top of the pile

There were contrasting goalkeeping fortunes at the Emirates as Arsenal overcame Chelsea in their own unique way.

Chelsea's Robert Sanchez rarely looks convincing while David Raya continues to look like the best the Premier League now has to offer.

It's only two and a half seasons ago that Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta made that big call to replace Aaron Ramsdale with Raya but the Spaniard continues to grow into the role and has been my outstanding goalkeeper of the season.

Others will make cases for Manchester City's Gianluigi Donnarumma and for Alisson at Liverpool while the impact of Senne Lammens at Manchester United has been profound.

But my top three this season currently goes: Raya, Alisson, Jordan Pickford.

Pereira must not gamble with Anderson

Things continue to be a struggle at Nottingham Forest who have placed their survival hopes in the hands of a manager seemingly addicted to losing this season.

Including his time at Wolves at the start of the campaign – he was sacked on November 2 - Vitor Pereira has overseen twelve Premier League games this season and had lost ten and drawn two of them.

To think that Forest started the season as a European team under Nuno Espirito Santo and are ending it scrambling around for safety under a coach seemingly hired because he once had six months with Evangelos Marinakis at Olympiakos 11 years ago is quite mind boggling.

Forest will have to be very bad indeed to go down but it's possible.

They looked a tired and ragged bunch in losing at Brighton on Sunday and maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Facing Fenerbahce in the second leg of a tie they were winning 3-0 last Thursday, it was a surprise to see a player like Elliot Anderson on the field for the whole 90 minutes.

Anderson is arguably Forest's most important player and has started every one of his team's 28 league games this season. Anderson has been at the top of his game but everyone needs a rest at some point. Forest are at City on Wednesday. It doesn't get any easier.

Keep the coaches sitting down

City's own win at Leeds on Saturday was an antidote to the sterility of the Arsenal-Chelsea game that followed 24 hours later.

Elland Road remains one of the great English stadiums and it was alive as Daniel Farke's Leeds team pushed City all the way. Arguably, Leeds deserved a point.

In terms of the home fans booing the decision to allow City's Muslim players a pause in play to break their Ramadan fasts, it was a pretty ugly spectacle.

Equally a twist of protocol would help.

With City under pressure in the game at the time, coach Pep Guardiola used the break to issue some much-needed instructions to his players. This should not be allowed, just as it should not be permitted at the water breaks that we will doubtless see at this summer's World Cup.

It's something for FIFA – and indeed the Premier League – to think about. Every coach does it and it should stop.

Commentator's curse for Guy

Guy Mowbray is one of our best modern commentators but in that trade your words will occasionally come back and bite you. It's the nature of the job.

So it was that the BBC's lead man's pre-game description of Farke as a coach 'who you never see flapping your arms about or losing it' lasted only as long as the 90 minutes that followed on Saturday.

Farke, of course, was shown a red card at Elland Road for flapping his arms about and losing it in the face of referee Peter Bankes at full-time.

DCL winning the race

With an England squad coming soon ahead of the March friendlies, Leeds striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin is among those pushing hard for a call-up. In terms of the ever-interesting scrap for the role of Harry Kane's understudy, he has jumped to the front of the queue not just because of the goals he has scored – he has 10 in the Premier League – but also for the way that he plays.

Calvert-Lewin carried a real presence against City, occupying the two visiting central defenders with the energy of his movement and the efficiency of his hold up play. At times it was hard to take your eyes off him.

Compare this to the merits of Liam Delap – who looked like he was running in sand for Chelsea at Arsenal – and Ollie Watkins – who scored four times in a week around Christmas but only once since – and his case is pretty clear.

For me, it's Calvert-Lewin, Brighton's Danny Welbeck, Watkins and Delap – in that order.

Emery needs help

At Villa Unai Emery's miracle juice is starting to run dry and Friday night's 2-0 defeat at Wolves means the Midlands club have taken only five points from their last five games.

Goals are indeed a problem for Villa. Only on one occasion in their last eight Premier League games have they managed to score more than one goal and only Watkins and Morgan Rogers – both with eight – have any kind of individual tally at all.

As for the gifted but inconsistent Douglas Luiz, he has a personal record that needs a shake-up.

The Brazilian has travelled from Villa to Juventus to Forest and then back to Villa over the last two seasons but has not scored a goal for 63 games. His last was actually in his first spell for Villa more than two years ago.

Nick is not the new Joelinton

Much has been made about Eddie Howe's decision to move his own primary goalscorer Nick Woltemade back into midfield and it is certainly a huge call. The big German was signed for £65million in the summer and Howe expected goals in return.

Comparisons with another Newcastle player, the Brazilian Joelinton, are understandable but not quite on the mark.

One of Howe's masterstrokes during his early months at Newcastle was indeed to move Joelinton back from the No 9 position into midfield but the difference is that the South American should never really have been played up front in the first place.

Joelinton was never really a striker at Hoffenheim and was as surprised as anybody when Newcastle, led by Steve Bruce at the time, tried to turn him in to one after buying him in 2019.

'I had played that position exactly three times before,' Joelinton told me during an interview in September 2022.

The 29-year-old was a striker as a young player at Recife in Brazil but had played wide or indeed as a No 10 in Germany.

Ballard the great survivor

Sunderland sit a point above their north-east rivals ahead of the midweek games and you would have got decent odds on that at the start of the season.

The Black Cats' genius has been to earn promotion through the play-offs – it's worth recalling they finished last season's Championship campaign 24 points behind Leeds and Burnley – and then use the money to build an almost completely new team.

But within all that churn there have been some survivors.

Dan Ballard – an English-born central defender – scored the 120th minute headed goal that took Sunderland to that play-off final last season and has not only managed to retain his place under Regis Le Bris but was voted his region's Player of the Year by the north-east Football Writers' Association on Sunday night and signed a new contract on the same day.

A reasonable day's work for the 26-year-old.

When is handball not handball?

Burnley will not be surviving their return to the Premier League but players such as their attacking midfielder Jaidon Anthony will surely be in demand when other clubs look to pick off their best talent in the summer. The 26-year-old was excellent as Scott Parker's team mounted their extraordinary comeback against Brentford at Turf Moor.

Much controversy as Burnley had two goals ruled out in the second half and it was the decision to disallow Ashley Barnes' late 'equaliser' that makes such a mockery of the current laws of the game.

The handball law is probably the most messed up of all these days – and it's a pretty high bar.

Had, for example, the ball travelled from Barnes to another team-mate after it appeared to strike his torso and part of his arm then the goal would have stood.

Had Barnes been in his own penalty area, he would in all likelihood not have been penalised.

However accidental handball IS penalised if the same player scores immediately afterwards, as was the case here.

Only in modern football could we have a situation where the same action is viewed in different ways depending on who carries it out and when.

Madness.

The Premier League has deleted a social media post it made which appeared to mock Tottenham Hotspur.

Following Spurs' 2-1 defeat at Fulham on Sunday, the league's X account saw fit to post a video of goalkeeper Vicario launching a free-kick out of play with the captions 'Just how the play was drawn up' and 'An interesting free-kick from Vicario', accompanied by a crying laughing emoji.

Users were quick to criticise the competition, pointing out that taking the mickey out of one of its own clubs was not the greatest look.

Daily Mail Sport understands officials at Tottenham, who are currently locked in a relegation battle, also raised eyebrows and made their feelings known to league bosses.

A widespread view was that while Spurs accept they are open to criticism thanks to what has been a deeply disappointing season, it did have a right not to expect such 'banter' from the league it competes in.

The Premier League's account, seen as the mouthpiece of the competition, has 44.9m followers and the post was viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

While the competition is yet to respond to a request for comment, the post was deleted on Monday morning.

The mockery is an additional unwanted distraction for Tottenham, who sit four points outside the Premier League's bottom three after Sunday's defeat by Fulham made it four losses on the spin.

Furious Igor Tudor branded Raul Jimenez a ‘cheat’ and ripped into his flops after they extended a winless run to 10 Premier League games.

'It’s a complicated situation, a lot of problems,' fumed Tudor. 'We need to find the voices inside each of us. We need more personality. We need more will to react.

'So, an amazing situation. Amazing.'

Tudor, who replaced Thomas Frank last month, defended his decision to alter his tactical shape from the back three he deployed in his first game against Arsenal to the 4-4-2 at Fulham.

'It’s not about system,' said the 47-year-old Croatian. 'The system is not important at this moment. The last thing that is important is the system.'

Tudor agreed Fulham were the better team, especially in the first half, and deserved to win.

'It’s very difficult to understand because you have the quality,' he added. 'But also football is a sport of running and duels. I have a sensation that Fulham players (are) always running and even with the brain. They arrive before us, they predict and we are always late on everything.'

Follow Daily Mail Sport's live blog for the latest score, team news and updates from Sunday's 2pm Premier League games featuring Manchester United vs Crystal Palace, Fulham vs Tottenham and Brighton vs Nottingham Forest.

Igor Tudor has shelved plans to impose his full-throttle brand of football at Tottenham after realising his players are not in good enough physical shape.

Tudor has forged a reputation for an intense, man-to-man, high-pressing tactical style during his 13-year coaching career.

It was part of his appeal for Spurs where fans demand adventure and ambition but just a fortnight and one game into his tenure, he admits this will not be possible with the tired and depleted squad he has inherited.

'Physically, we are not in an amazing situation,' said Tudor. 'They have played lots of games in the last period without lots of players available and the physical condition of the team has dropped down. So, we need to use this period where we don't play the games to put some petrol in the engine, so the engine starts to work better.

'They are fatigued and to press high you need to be fit. But all of them. If someone is not in the right shape, there is a problem because someone is coming [pressing] late. And the second thing, is that there is the other goal to protect. It is easy to run there but you need to run back so if you run up and don't run back it's a problem.

'For sure, we will improve and do these things better over time but in this moment it's a big question what we can do and what we cannot.'

Tudor has surprised some Spurs players with some gruelling running sessions in training overseen by the fitness coach he brought with him Riccardo Ragnacci.

'That's the only way, running,' said the Spurs interim boss. 'The pitch is a hundred yards, it's long. You need to run. There are habits. Maybe you have habits to work a bit less. Players never like runs without the ball so we put in some runs without the ball.

'There is no time to think too much about what somebody doesn't like. And the best thing is that they understand this.'

Tudor's initial assessment is not dissimilar to predecessors Ange Postecoglou and Thomas Frank, who both concluded that the squad was neither strong nor robust enough to cope when coupled with the expectation to play adventurous, exciting football and attack four competitions.

But the urgency of these circumstances, four points above the relegation zone without a win in nine Premier League games, together with the Croatian's imposing stature and taciturn delivery gave his message the ring of a chilling wake-up call for his players.

'There is some pressure here in this club,' said Tudor. 'Some players are still young. They were brought here to help and now maybe they are in a moment where they need to solve the problems.

'If you have too many of these players because of injuries who are playing together it does create some problems, but it is also an opportunity and a challenge to grow fast, to become a man.

'To grow fast and say, 'Come on, I'm the guy, give me the ball, I will score' instead of just, 'What can I do, I'm just here you know'. This is the challenge for each of them. Why not say, 'Come on, I will be the guy, give me the ball, I will not cry, I will take the ball, I will defend my box'.

'It's always how you see the situation. You can always see it both ways. Or 'I'm not, I'm just here and we had 15 players and I was always left out and now we have 10 players out, so I play'. How do you really see that situation? If you are the right guy, positive there is opportunity.'

When asked ahead of Sunday's trip to Fulham if he thought there were enough soldiers for the fight ahead, Tudor said that he hoped and believed there were and promised not to read too far into performances in his first game, a 4-1 defeat against Premier League leaders Arsenal.

'If you play against the best team in the world, at this moment, for us, I need to be honest, it's not a realistic game to show we are soldiers or we are not soldiers,' he said. 'That's the truth. For long periods in the game we had problems, in defence especially. It's not easy against them. Let's see in the next games.'

Mauricio Pochettino has played down swirling links to the vacant permanent managerial role at his former club Tottenham Hotspur ahead of taking the United States men's team to their home World Cup this summer.

Despite leaving in 2019 amid a run of disappointing form, the Argentine manager remains a well-loved presence in north London - and in spite of his season-long spell at rivals Chelsea for the 2023-24 campaign.

In the years since leaving the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium too, Pochettino has variously entertained or ruled out the chance of a second turn in the dugout.

But for fans currently fearing the drop down to the Championship following the sacking of Thomas Frank and interim appointment of Igor Tudor, the US men's national team coach had a crumb of comfort to offer them when asked about the position on Wednesday.

'There are always rumours, I'm always linked (to clubs),' Pochettino told Spanish radio programme Radiogaceta de los Deportes. 'To Tottenham, just like at one time I was linked to Espanyol, or to other clubs.

'In the end, especially because of my past at those clubs, when things aren't going well, people tend to fall back on emotions and say, "Well, with Mauricio we played good football," or whatever it may be.

'But no. We're focused on the World Cup, on the United States. My contract runs until after the World Cup, so after that we'll see what might happen.

'Open to everything, right?'

Pochettino was invariably one of the names that sprung to mind following Frank's departure at the start of the month, despite his ongoing preparations with the US national team.

But while an immediate appointment would have been impossible, the manager is out of contract after the tournament, and believed to be interested in a return to club football in the future.

Pochettino also remains based in England, which could further factor into his decision when he plots his next move.

He has made no secret of his ongoing connection to Tottenham too, where he oversaw a run to the Champions League final in 2018, and a second-place finish in the Premier League one season earlier.

But Daily Mail Sport revealed earlier this week that as of yet, no formal nor informal contact has taken place between the two parties about a summer appointment.

Since leaving the club nearly seven years ago, Pochettino has managed Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, before joining up with the US team in September 2024.

Ian Wright suggested that some of Tottenham's biggest stars are unwilling to give new interim manager Igor Tudor a chance, after Micky Van de Ven appeared to blank him during the north London derby.

Appointed following the overdue sacking of Thomas Frank earlier this month, Tudor arrived with the challenging brief of ensuring that Spurs avoid relegation.

The Europa League champions currently sit 16th and only four points away from 18th-placed West Ham - and Tudor's arrival in the capital was made no easier by his first match in charge being the north London derby.

As Spurs fell 4-1 to Arsenal at home, Tudor was spotted apparently giving vocal instructions to Van de Ven from the sidelines, only for the defender to fail to acknowledge him.

For Wright, the fact that the players were not eager to engage with their new head coach was a troubling sign.

'Against Arsenal I saw Igor Tudor try to speak to Van de Ven, he blanked him, totally blanked him,' Wright said to his co-hosts on The Overlap's Stick To Football podcast.

'That says to me they have checked out already.'

Gary Neville thought that Wright's verdict was a 'harsh' one, while Roy Keane argued that the players 'did that with' Frank, but the Arsenal legend was in no mood to back down.

'This guy is new, he wants him to come up and Van de Ven just looks at him and stays there,' Wright continued. 'You think to yourself, that doesn't look good. That does not look good.'

For his part, Tudor denied conflict between himself and Van de Ven on Thursday afternoon, sharing that he had been addressing the whole team.

'If you watch carefully, I don't speak to him (in that moment),' Tudor said in his pre-Premier League weekend press conference. 'Afterwards, I said to him to come closer, and he comes closer.

'We didn't talk about it because nothing happened. He's a fantastic professional and a fantastic guy, he would not do something like (ignoring me).'

Belgium head coach Roberto Martinez stressed that whatever Tudor can do to ensure Spurs do not spend next season in the Championship, his first order of business should be 'accepting where they are' at this stage in the campaign.

'When I was at Wigan you almost prepared for that last third of the season because that is your opportunity,' Martinez said. 'The last third for us was that we are going to get out of trouble.

'The problem is when you are going into the last third hoping you are not going to get dragged down into a relegation battle because your club wasn't ready for that. This is where it becomes very, very dangerous.

'What happens now is that you should forget about these general terms that "we shouldn't get dragged down", what does this mean to a player (looking to hear) "do I need to run more, less".

'It is basic language (you use to a player) about everything you can control, "you have to do 12km, six sprints into the box and run to the near post". Everything has to be so measurable. It is about winning the next game.'

Spurs' torrid winter has been only exacerbated by a number of injuries to key players leaving their squad painfully short.

But Martinez was keen to warn that Spurs cannot wait for stars to return and simply expect fortunes to change.

'I think Spurs will get one or two players back from injury, you win a game and then you have got too much (of a gap),' he added.

'The problem is there are no easy games in the Premier League. As a player at Spurs you might think there are easy games we can win, no - there are no easy games. It is about reducing that to, it is the next game and you have an opportunity to get points rather than if you don't win and you are out.

'The moment that the club see it as "wow, if we don't win..." - the mindset is so negative and it drags you down. We have seen teams that are "too good to go down" go down because they weren't prepared for that final third of the season.'

Spurs will stay in London for their next Premier League test, travelling to Craven Cottage to play Fulham on Sunday.

Former Tottenham Hotspur assistant manager John Heitinga was asked to stay by the club following Thomas Frank's sacking, but chose to leave after just 32 days in north London, his agent has revealed.

The ex-Everton player, who previously assisted Arne Slot at Liverpool, was announced as a new addition to the Danish head coach's staff in January amid a turgid run of results.

When Frank was given his marching orders earlier this month, Heitinga followed him out of the door.

But Rob Jansen, who represents the Dutchman, was adamant that Spurs wanted Heitinga to stay on and support newly appointed interim boss Igor Tudor - but that his client had been less than willing.

'He was allowed to stay,' Jansen said on the podcast he shares with journalist Michel Van Egmond and former Dutch footballers Wim Kieft and Rene van der Gijp (via Sport Witness). 'They even asked him to stay.

'All other coaches, all Scandinavian, left. And after three weeks, they told him: "Please stay and see out your contract here." That's quite an achievement for someone who worked there for three weeks.

'But he said: "Yes, but now Igor Tudor, a Croatian coach, is coming with a whole staff for three or four months". That man is always hired for emergency jobs.

'That almost never works. Why they did that is a mystery to me. And then another coach will come in. So, you can leave twice. That new coach will also come in with 45 people. He said, "This is pointless, Rob. I have to leave now".'

In the days between Frank being sacked and Tudor's appointment, Jansen added that Heitinga, who has previously held the top job at Ajax, was considering taking up the interim role himself.

'But there was a chance he would take over; we had that in mind. Only the club didn't,' he continued. 'After three weeks, they decided it was too soon.

'So, then you have an interim manager. What does the management do, or in this case, the owners, the Lewis family?

'They opt for some kind of security. They hire someone with a track record, someone known as a crisis manager at struggling clubs for a few months. That saves their image. Unless they dare to continue with Heitinga and a new staff, but they won't.'

Jansen hinted that with his departure, Heitinga had at least managed to net himself a good-looking payout, adding cheekily: 'I'm always good at drawing up contracts in advance, as you know.'

Former Juventus manager Tudor has been accompanied to London by an all-new team, comprised of assistant coach Ivan Javorcic, physical coach Riccardo Ragnacci and goalkeeping coach Tomislav Rogic.

He was duly handed the first match of his Tottenham career from hell as Spurs lost 4-1 to Arsenal for a second time this season in the north London derby.

For much of this season, football fans, even Arsenal fans, have regarded Viktor Gyokeres with the kind of suspicion that was once reserved for Stephane Guivarc’h, a man remembered more for a rogue apostrophe than for the goals he scored for France when they won the 1998 World Cup.

That was because Guivarc’h didn’t score any goals in that tournament. Not a single one. He was France’s centre forward in six of the seven games they played and he started in the final against Brazil.

But in a team that featured dream players such as Zinedine Zidane and Youri Djorkaeff, much of his hard work went unseen. He was regarded by many as an afterthought.

Until Sunday afternoon at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it has felt much the same with Gyokeres. In a team of quicksilver talents, he has been characterised as its clodhopper. There were times when it seemed as if Arsenal had paid £64m to Sporting Lisbon in the summer just to acquire an achilles heel.

It was not that Gyokeres didn’t score goals. It was just that he didn’t score enough of them. And that the ball seemed to bounce off him. And that he often lost it when he tried to hold it up. And that some of his team-mates seemed so reluctant to pass to him that TikTokers made videos about it.

There was a feeling, too, that if Kai Havertz had been able to stay fit, then Gyokeres would have been demoted to the bench. But when Havertz came back from a long lay-off, he soon succumbed to injury again. And Arteta has been wise enough and stubborn enough to keep faith with Gyokeres.

Your browser does not support iframes.

The outside perception of Gyokeres as a journeyman floundering in an elite side came to an end in N17 as Sunday afternoon turned into Sunday evening. Gyokeres had what they call in the United States a ‘breakout game’. On an occasion that was hugely important to Arsenal’s fluttering title hopes, he scored two goals and had a claim to be his team’s best player.

To see him tear the Spurs defence apart, to see him score two clinical, emphatic finishes, to see him overpower opponents, to see him run himself into the ground, reminded me at last of the Gyokeres I saw taking Manchester City to pieces at the Jose Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon in Sporting’s 4-1 Champions League win there in November 2024.

Gyokeres scored a hat-trick that night. Arsenal supporters have been waiting for that version of Gyokeres to show up in their colours and against Spurs, he did.

The breakout moment has been coming. His two strikes mean he has scored more goals in all competitions in 2026 (eight, plus two assists) than any other Premier League player.

Strikers, more than any other players, thrive off confidence and Gyokeres is brimming with it now. His performance on Sunday suggested that, instead of being the player who could cost Arsenal the title, he might just be the guy who wins it for them.

Arsenal have not had a striker who has scored 20 league goals in a season since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did it in 2019-20 and Gyokeres, on 10 with 10 games to play, is unlikely to hit that mark this season, either.

But if he keeps going at his recent rate, if Sunday’s game really was a sliding doors moment for him, then he might get close. Last season, Havertz was the club’s top scorer in the league with nine goals so at least Gyokeres has already surpassed that.

It is hard to overstate how important it would be to Arsenal’s title hopes to have a prolific striker adding to their weaponry. It has been their only real weakness under Arteta but, in their previous three seasons of finishing runners-up in the league to City and Liverpool, it has been the thing that has cost them most dearly.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Havertz, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli have shared the club’s top-scorer mantle over the last few seasons and none of them is a classic striker in the way that Gyokeres is. Fitting one into the side has been Arteta’s final hurdle and it is starting to look as if he may just have cleared it.

Statistics from Sunday also suggest that the team is growing used to Gyokeres, too. No striker can thrive without service and it is beginning to look as if Arsenal are finally starting to trust their Swedish front man.

In the debacle of the draw against Wolves last week, commonly perceived as Arsenal’s worst performance of the season, Arsenal players only passed to Gyokeres eight times. Against Spurs, they passed to him 28 times. And Gyokeres delivered.

Just imagine what it will do to Arsenal’s psyche in the title run-in if they believe they have a prolific striker in their ranks as well as sublime talents like Saka, Declan Rice, William Saliba and Gabriel.

City have had that in recent years. Erling Haaland has always been their super-power, their get-out-of-jail card, the best in class, the guy who can get you a win out of nowhere. He is still that player. He remains a remarkable talent.

And it has never felt quite right that Arsenal should be at the opposite extreme. It has never felt feasible that they could win a title with a winger as top scorer or a midfielder. Now that Gyokeres is hitting his stride, that credibility gap does not seem nearly as wide.

A delight to see Dele

A beautiful thing happened at half-time of the north London derby.

Dele Alli, a star who was a reminder of better times for Spurs, walked on to the pitch at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as the club’s Guest of Honour for the day and spoke to the stadium announcer, Paul Coyte.

Part of what made it beautiful was that it was so unexpected. Alli turned what might have been a series of platitudes into a baring of his soul and an expression of love and wistfulness for a golden time in a career that now seems to have slipped away from him.

After a troubled childhood and a spell at MK Dons, Alli joined Spurs in 2015 and made 269 appearances for them, earning 37 caps for England in the process. His fortunes have declined sharply since then and he is currently without a club. He is only 29.

He has not played since he was released by Como last year after making one appearance for the club. There were times during the interview when Alli struggled to speak through the emotion of the memories that walking on to the pitch and being cheered to the rafters by the crowd had unleashed.

‘I hope you've missed me as much as I've missed you,’ Alli said. ‘A lot has happened in our journeys since we were last together but I'm back today and I hope you know that you'll always be my family.’

As he walked off, the crowd rose and sang the song that was always his signature. ‘We've got Alli, Dele Alli, I just don't think you understand. He only cost five mil, he's better than Ozil, we've got Dele Alli.’

For club and for player, those days feel long, long ago.

Things have changed at Tottenham Hotspur but it would appear they have also stayed exactly the same. New manager, same players and same bad habits. And that's the problem.

This was officially the most one-side game of the Premier League weekend. That may surprise some people given Chelsea were at home to Burnley and Manchester City were also playing in front of their own supporters.

But this was the weekend's 'shooting fish in a barrel' game by quite a distance and – given that Tottenham were at home in a North London derby – that is utterly damning.

When these teams met at the Emirates last November, the scoreline was the same. So, it transpires, was everything else. Back then, Arsenal had 57 per cent of the possession. Here, that figure was even higher at 61 per cent.

In November the shot tallies stood at 17-3 to Arsenal. This time it was 20-6. In terms of touches in the opposition penalty area, Arsenal won that one 27-4 at their own ground and by an astonishing 46-7 on this occasion.

So what we can deduce us that the gap between these teams remains enormous.

Arsenal – despite recent hiccups – continue to move forwards while their great rivals are stuck in reverse. New coach Igor Tudor was asked to replace Thomas Frank in a bid to improve this team. The truth is that there was absolutely no sign of it here. As Jamie Reknapp said on Sky afterwards: 'These teams looked as though they were playing in different divisions and by next season they may well be.'

SPURS REALLY CAN GO DOWN

Some of us have been in denial about this fact for some time. But no longer.

Spurs are a team without a league win this calendar year while those beneath them are showing signs of life. West Ham have finally started to thrive on the back of the coaching of Nuno Espirito Santo while Nottingham Forest were unfortunate to lose to Liverpool on Sunday and already look to have found some kind of forward momentum under new coach Vitor Pereira.

This is what Spurs need to find under Tudor but the problem ahead of next week's visit to Fulham and the home game with Crystal Palace that follows is that they remain beset by injuries.

With reserve goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky now reporting an injury, Tottenham are without a whole 1-11 of players and the weight of that is in danger of dragging them down in to the Championship. Given that last season's Spurs coach Ange Postecoglou suffered similarly from absentees, it's worth asking the question as to why Tottenham regularly seem to have these problems.

DO THEY HAVE THE STOMACH FOR THE FIGHT?

Worryingly for Tottenham fans, all the problems that afflicted Frank's tenure were on display against Arsenal.

Spurs were erratic and error prone across the back, goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario continues to represent an accident waiting to happen, and in possession they carried absolutely no threat at all.

The goal that Spurs scored was really well taken by Randal Kolo Muani and was his first in the Premier League. It should do him some good. But the fact the chance was presented to him by Arsenal's Declan Rice, of all people, speaks volumes for how the game went.

Tottenham also look a very tired team and that is a worry with a quarter of the season left, especially given they have Champions League games to factor in.

Midfielder Joao Palhinha — an emergency central defender here — was blowing hard as Eberechi Eze flew by him in the second half, while Archie Gray had nothing left as he meekly lost his duel with Viktor Gyokeres for the fourth goal. As harsh as it sounds on young Gray — overworked and constantly being asked to play in different positions — that was a 'men against boys' moment and the handful of Spurs fans left in the stadium will have watched it from behind their hands.

Tudor threw some substitutes on in the second half, but Richarlison did what he often does and went looking for confrontations designed to show how much he cares, but that ultimately achieve nothing.

THE BASICS MUST BE BETTER

There are excuses everywhere for Tudor and his players, but at the same time there are some things that simply must be improved upon.

Tottenham started this game terribly and we have to ask why that is? If a team cannot come hard out of the blocks for a derby at home playing for a new coach then when exactly do we think that will happen? And if it isn't happening, then why not?

They could have been two goals down by the time the game was paused for five minutes to deal with a problem with the referee's radio. Already there had been potentially damaging mistakes by goalkeeper Vicario and forward Xavi Simons.

The pause in play gave the home team an opportunity to effectively start the game again, but there was absolutely no reset and when Eze put Arsenal ahead from 10 yards there were 10 Tottenham players within 10 yards of the ball. Eze was slightly fortunate that the ball fell for him, but ultimately he was unchallenged when he volleyed it home. Tudor (right) touched on this candidly when he said: 'These are good players with bad habits. They need to change. There has to be a mental switch.

'They need sharpness and courage to be in the game from the first moment. Otherwise we have a problem.' Quite.

GALLAGHER COULD BE CRUCIAL

One of the flaws in Tottenham's modern recruitment strategy has been their failure to buy enough oven-ready Premier League players. Too many have been bought for the future but the problem is the here and now.

Conor Gallagher's January arrival from Atletico Madrid was supposed to help with all that but so far his impact has been limited. During this game, the former Chelsea and England player looked a little bemused as though he was still struggling to readjust to the hectic nature of a Premier League game. This was the 26-year-old's sixth start and he must find his real self quickly.