Football Special Report: Arsenal vs. Tottenham Hotspurs- Review and Player Ratings (Part 2)
Continued
Spurs urgently required a change of approach for the second half and rightly so, Tottenham manager called off the ineffective Aaron Lennon and landed Jermaine Defoe in his place. It was Jermaine Defoe first appearance in Barclays Premier League after being
injured in September. The half time change made an influence right away and the English striker helped in setting up the first goal of Spurs.
William Gallas played the long ball up field towards Jermaine Defoe and he managed to flick the ball towards Van der Vaart, who did well to control the ball and played it towards through towards Bale. The Welsh winger sprinted towards Fabianski goal and
put the ball down the left corner of the post.
Tottenham were suddenly up and running after a goal from absolutely nothing and came mighty close to grabbing an equaliser five minutes later when Jermaine Defoe won a midfield battle with Alex Song and played the ball out wide for Pavlyuchenko. The Russian
attacker was tripped when running across the face of the penalty area but Van der Vaart picked up the loose ball and his long range effort just went fractionally away from the goal.
The Gunners still posed a very visible threat though and Arshavin was again on the end of a Cesc ball but yet again the wingers’ hesitation cost him and Kaboul got back to steal the ball back for the opposition.
Yet more twists and turns were to come though and Cesc, who was enjoying a glorious game thus far, quickly went from hero to zero as a Luka Modric set piece from the edge of the area was visibly blocked by Fabregas’ arm, who standing inside the box and referee
showed no hesitation in giving penalty to Spurs. Tottenham Hotspurs’ deadline day signing, the former Real Madrid midfielder, Rafael van der Vaart took the penalty and scored the equaliser by sending Fabianski to the wrong side.
An energetic game already was unexpectedly in overdrive and Gunners’ distress was temporarily turned to happiness mere moments later when a very well worked Cesc Fabregas free-kick was headed back across goal by Persie for Koscielny to fire home from a few
yards out only for the lines-man to correctly recognise that both players were offside in the build-up to the goal.
Arsenal was stunned by the visitors but home side showed no sign of backing down as they started to dominate the possession. Cesc, intent on righting his wrong, brought a fantastic save out of Spurs’ keeper, diving far to his right to nail a bending shot
past the post with a solid right-hand, before Squillaci had the goal gaping but could only head over to the moans of the home support.
One final twist was left in the Tottenham tank as the game approached full time. Clichy hacked down Defoe as the striker tried to break down the right flank and once more Rafael van der Vaart took that free kick, which was exceptionally headed by Kaboul
to score the third for the Spurs and the decisive goal of the match with five minutes to go.
After going down, Arsenal tried their level best to find another goal to save their bragging rights but tremendous performance from their former player William Gallas in the dying stages kept the Gunners at bay and Spurs won at their rivals turf after 17
years.
To be continued in Part 3
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