Tottenham Hotspur's hopes of enjoying a much-needed 'manager bounce' were dashed as Arsenal rocked up at N17 and inflicted on their rivals a second 4-1 thrashing of the season.
Eberechi Eze has left a lot to be desired since leaving Crystal Palace and joining Arsenal for £67m last summer, but his personal vendetta against the club who came within a whisker of taking him from Selhurst Park has been sobering to say the least. Five of his six Premier League goals this term have come against Tottenham.
Igor Tudor arrived in north London last week and said all the right things in the build-up to Sunday's match. He exuded confidence. However, no amount of savoir faire could prevent him from turning the tide at Spurs, with numerous stars unable to muster any quality or cohesion.
Spurs' biggest disappointments vs Arsenal
So often a pillar of strength for Tottenham, Micky van de Ven was well off the boil against Arsenal. It's tough to say, but the Dutchman looks somewhat disinterested, certainly affected as Spurs' interminable suffering goes on and on and on.
The athletic centre-back failed with both of his attempted tackles, despite making nine defensive contributions in total, and there's a real concern that he is losing faith in this term with the critical final months upon us.
He wasn't the only one who frustrated. Conor Gallagher looks so limited on the ball, and Xavi Simons has yet to prove he can be a difference-maker and a talisman from a creative standpoint (though he is hardly being helped by those around him).
In many ways, Cristian Romero was another of Tottenham's biggest disappointments on Sunday. The skipper was absent through suspension, after all.
With Romero sidelined, Tudor was forced to make a few rogue decisions to implement his three-man defence, and while Joao Palhinha struggled in an unnatural role, another defender was the worst of the bunch.
Spurs flop is becoming the new Aurier
Since joining Tottenham from Genoa just over two years ago, Radu Dragusin has had a tough time.
The Romanian centre-half was drafted into a shaky set-up, with Romero and Van de Ven both sidelined. Then he ruptured his ACL and spent the majority of 2025 on the sidelines.
Sky Sports analyst Pythagoras in Boots said after the game, "Dragusin must be the worst CB I’ve seen in quite a while in the Premier League."
Such harsh words were by no means baseless, and while Dragusin is an ostensibly talented defender, coveted by Bayern Munich before Spurs won the race and signed him from Genoa for £27m, he is not utilising his quality very well, and in that, he has become the club's new version of Serge Aurier.
Aurier arrived at Tottenham from PSG with a weight of expectation but left with a reputation for hot-headedness and inconsistency. Dragusin isn't a particularly reckless defender, but he's not a particularly good one either.
In fact, analyst Raj Chohan has joined the pile-on and said that he's "not Premier League level". With the danger of relegation beginning to dawn on the Lilywhites, it's fair to say that the concern is that such criticism will prove prophetic at the end of the season.
Tottenham are incapable of completing the fundamentals right now, and Dragusin's efforts are hardly indicative of him being the catalyst at the rear. Mistakes have been commonplace across the backline this season, and Dragusin has directly contributed toward two of them despite only starting three times.
He's going to be sold sooner rather than later, and will fall into obscurity much like Aurier did. In some ways, it's unfair. Structurally, Spurs are a mess.
However, he made a grave mistake in the lead-up to Eze's second striker of the evening, and it's simply not working. Right now, he's not up to the standard, and though Romero is hardly flawless, his return from suspension cannot come soon enough.