Thomas Frank’s North London derby plan appeared to come together only to come apart in a hurry as his Tottenham Hotspur fell 4-1 to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
And Guglielmo Vicario has spoken out with anger and honestly after the game. The goalkeeper says it wasn’t about tactics, just that Spurs ‘did not fight.’
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Tottenham Hotspur’s boss prepared a hardy and aggressive defensive plan and looked to have flustered Arsenal’s injury-riddled attack aside from an early connection from Eberechi Eze to Declan Rice which was well-saved by Guglielmo Vicario.
But Leandro Trossard’s deflected strike opened Arsenal’s account in the 36th minute before Eberechi Eze added to the advantage before and right after halftime.
Richarlison’s audacious and opportunistic goal from distance after Joao Palhinha cued an Arsenal turnover put Spurs back into the game but it was merely cosmetic as Frank’s men struggled to get near David Raya’s goal.
Thomas Frank reaction — Spurs boss speaks after North London derby disappointment
Thoughts on the game? “I think it’s extremely painful. I can’t talk away from that. It was a bad performance. It was the complete opposite of the intention. We can only apologize to the fans for this performance.”
Not enough fight, character in the game? “You can always can say that on the day. I don’t like that because I’ve seen a lot of character and fight in this team. But I think one big thing we didn’t do well enough is win duels. We can call that whatever you want, but we didn’t win duels.”
The formation worked for a while but then dropped off and you made a change: “I tried to play a 5-4-1. I will always take responsibility in the end to change the system. We changed at halftime to 4-2-3-1. My view is no matter what formation we play, it we don’t have the duels and intensity, we don’t win.”
What went wrong on the goals? “The goals I’d like to see more in detail. The whole game I need to look through tonight and that will be a painful watch. The main bit was we were not aggressive and stepping forward in duels.”
Attacking ideas in the final third are a problem? “It’s fair to say it’s an ongoing thing that we’re working hard on with everything we can. It hasn’t looked good today. It didn’t look for Chelsea. Other games, it’s looked better. But today it did not look good.”
Guglielmo Vicario reaction — Spurs boss speaks after North London derby disappointment
Thoughts on the loss? “Very bad night for us. First of all we have to apologize to those who traveled to see us because they expect to see us fight. Tonight we did not fight as a collective. Tonight is a very bad defeat but we have to stick together because we know what we have to address. We have to believe much more in ourselves. Tonight we didn’t show anything of which we’re capable. Emotions are higher when you lose a derby like that but we need to keep cool heads and apologize to the people who traveled today because we cannot have a performance like that.”
Why wouldn’t your team be ready for a North London derby? “I don’t know the answer, probably many things. I think we waited a little bit too long to get into the game. We were a bit too passive. The game plan was a little different and maybe we didn’t recognize the situations to pressure them and tonight we did not fight.”