The New York Times

Predictably, Mikel Arteta was not happy with the decision to send off Declan Rice. Predictably, Brighton's Fabian Fabian Hurzeler said it was the correct call.

One thing everyone could agree on was that it massively swung the game, and Arsenal cannot afford to cede control of many more matches this season.

The Athletic's Amy Lawrence wrote on the lessons they must learn from a head-scratching afternoon at the Emirates Stadium — give it a read below.

Arsenal 1-1 Brighton

Having won both of their opening two matches, Arsenal welcomed Brighton to the Emirates Stadium in their last game.

A brilliant lob from Kai Havertz gave the hosts the lead in the first half, but their hopes of victory soon unravelled in the second half.

Within four minutes of the restart, Declan Rice was shown his second yellow card in a controversial incident with Joel Veltman. The England midfielder was adjudged to have delayed a Brighton free-kick by nudging the ball away and it left Arsenal a man down for the rest of the match.

Unsurprisingly, Brighton took advantage of the extra-man advantage and were soon level through Joao Pedro. The visitors continued to push for a winning goal and probably should have found one, but Mikel Arteta's side were able to hang on for a point to maintain their unbeaten start.

Tottenham Hotspur have taken 48 shots in their first three games of the Premier League season, according to Opta — more than any other team apart from Nottingham Forest (53).

They rank one behind Forest for shots on target with 20, and are joint-second for efforts outside the box (18) behind Crystal Palace’s 19.

Ange Postecoglou’s side have produced three good performances in those matches by dominating possession and boldly playing out from the back, yet have only four points from the nine available.

Before the international break, The Athletic broke down their struggles in front of goal against Newcastle — check it out below.

Newcastle 2-1 Tottenham

Tottenham were dealt their first Premier League defeat of the season in their last match before the international break. And it was a loss they really should have avoided.

After Harvey Barnes opened the scoring for Newcastle with the game approaching half-time, a rather comical Dan Burn own goal made it 1-1 before the hour mark.

From there, Spurs dominated the game and had countless opportunities to take the lead.

But they didn't take any of them and were punished on the break with Alexander Isak finishing off a clinical counter attack to win his side the game in the 78th minute.

This has caused quite the stir over the last days and, in my opinion, rightly so.

Arsenal will wear their away kit for a north London derby for the first time since 1986. The Premier League has ruled that their home kit includes too much white and is not different enough from Tottenham's home shirt.

So instead, Arteta's side will line up in their black away kit for today's game rather than their traditional red-and-white.

As soon as Odegaard limped out of Norway's 2-1 win against Austria, panic set in throughout the Arsenal fanbase.

They already knew they were going into a north London derby without Rice and Merino, losing Odegaard was just the cherry on top of a very unpleasant cake.

The Athletic's best Arsenal brains whirred into gear and it was Art De Roche's job to look at what midfielders Arteta was left with — you can find his piece below.

Despite claiming that "players with 48 hours are always available" in his pre-match press conference, Arteta will not be able to call on Odegaard for today's game.

"We need to see the extent of the injury and he quickly we can get him back", said Arteta. "He's super positive about everything. We know Martin, he wants to be there every single day but we have to wait and see."

He was then asked whether Merino has improving after he fractured his shoulder in his first training session.

"(He's) better. It's a slow process because it's a bone and it takes a while to heal," he said. "He's progressing well, he's already doing some stuff.

"He's working extremely hard and we're using this time to make sure he understands the things he has questions about, so that he's ready to go when he's back."

The last couple of weeks have been a nightmare for Arsenal on the team news front.

Declan Rice's red card in the 1-1 draw against Brighton means he is suspended and will not feature today.

And his absence of one of several for Arsenal; they are without captain Martin Odegaard, who sustained an ankle injury while on international duty, and new signing Mikel Merino because of a shoulder injury.

Another of their summer signings, Riccardo Calafiori, picked up an injury while representing his country but he could be involved today.

Elsewhere, defender Takehiro Tomiyasu is still out, while Arteta is hoping to have Gabriel Jesus available for selection.

After his initial injury round-up, Postecoglou was pressed on the issue facing Bissouma.

"It’s hard to say at the moment, it’s a tweak in his groin," said the Tottenham manager on Friday.

"The initial report is it’s not serious which means there is a chance for Sunday, which tells me it’s nothing significant.

"If he doesn’t make Sunday, then I’ll assume he’ll be right for after that. At the same time, he’s just come off a long flight, you never feel great anyway, we’ll see how he trains tomorrow (Saturday) and that will give the best indication."

There have been a few injury issues for Tottenham to contend with since the start of the season.

But the international break has done Ange Postecoglou's side the world of good. Both Micky van de Ven and Dominic Solanke have used the break to get back on the training pitch and they should both be in contention for today's game.

And Solanke's potential inclusion is important, with fellow forwards Richarlison and Will Lankshear still recovering from their injuries.

Midfielder Yves Bissouma picked up a groin problem while on international duty, so he is a doubt.

Home. That was the fourth word Mikel Arteta officially uttered as Arsenal manager. In his maiden press conference, in December 2019, with his smooth hair and youthful face, in a red polo shirt that looked fresh out of the packet, with everything in front of him — some things he expected and others he could not possibly imagine — the first expression that came to mind suggested he was at his happy place. “I feel back home,” he said.

As an opening sentence, it struck a chord because it was maybe a little unexpected to realise how much Arsenal had got under the skin of a player who represented six clubs in four different countries during his career. Although his time as a player was recalled fondly enough, it was not the easiest chunk of time in the club’s history.

There he was, Arsenal’s new head coach, ready to take the plunge into his first job at the sharp end. He was 37 and despite his high-calibre experiences as an ambitious assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, he had never, at that point, managed a single game. He was parachuted into a high-profile job made particularly demanding because the squad was not in a good place. Even today it seems a little mad — although the best ideas usually are.

Read more below

There was some big news for Arsenal supporters on Thursday morning.

Mikel Arteta committed his long-term future to Arsenal by agreeing a new contract, which will secure him to the Emirates Stadium until 2027.

Arteta’s previous deal was scheduled to expire at the end of this season — but both parties have moved to eliminate any uncertainty, with a three-year extension now in place.

The development will come as a significant boost to Arsenal ahead of today's north London derby. Arteta has been central to the club’s rise since he replaced Unai Emery as head coach in late 2019 and changed title to manager the following year.

Read more below.

Good morning and welcome along to The Athletic's live coverage of the season's first north London derby.

Tottenham vs Arsenal remains one of the great fixtures in world football and this one looks set to be a belter!

Arsenal arrive at the home of their greatest enemy without a few of their key players, while Tottenham come into this one on the back of a faltering start to their Premier League campaign.

Loads of time to go until kick-off in the capital, so stick with us for all the build-up.

Games between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal rarely disappoint.

There has not been a goalless draw in the north London derby for 15 years and last season’s two matches produced nine goals.

Arsenal have won on their past two trips to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and, already — slightly ridiculously, given we are three games into the season — there is a sense they need another one to stay in touch with a Manchester City team who have won their past 14 consecutive Premier League matches.

With plenty at stake for both teams, The Athletic’s Tottenham reporter Jay Harris, Arsenal writer Jordan Campbell and senior data analyst Mark Carey consider the key talking points going into Sunday’s match.

Is this a good time for Tottenham to face Arsenal?

Harris: Spurs will be smelling blood when they look at the number of key players unavailable to Mikel Arteta. Ange Postecoglou has also been dealing with injury issues, but if Dominic Solanke and Micky van de Ven are fully fit, he can field his strongest XI.

When these two sides faced each other in April, Ben Davies — deputising for the injured Destiny Udogie — could not keep up with Bukayo Saka. Udogie is fit again after spending the summer recovering from thigh surgery and his battle with Saka should be more even. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg scored an own goal in that game but has since left for Marseille and Postecoglou has a wider variety of options in central midfield.

The biggest concern for Tottenham is that they can still look vulnerable at the back. Cristian Romero has made a couple of costly errors, which is somewhat understandable when you consider he only spent a couple of weeks on holiday after winning the Copa America with Argentina before returning for pre-season. Romero could have done with a rest during the international break but he played twice for Argentina. Tottenham fans will be hoping the extra game time has boosted his sharpness and that it does not leave him feeling knackered.

Carey: It is a cliche but it’s true — all rules go out of the window in derby games. The quick turnaround after the international break might mean that the contest is a little lower in intensity, but this one is difficult to predict.

For Arsenal, it is not just the blow of — as seems very likely — losing Martin Odegaard’s quality to injury but also how much it affects them tactically. Arsenal’s captain is a key component of their right-sided rotations with Ben White and Saka — a trio who have been so consistent for the past 18 months. They have plenty of quality elsewhere across the pitch, but add in Declan Rice’s suspension and Arsenal fans’ concerns become understandable.

Spurs have not made the blistering start of last season but have played well. On another day, they would have comfortably dispatched Leicester City and Newcastle United with the chances they generated and we all know that the football xG gods have a way of balancing things out across a season.

Might we see Spurs create fewer chances but score two scruffy goals? You wouldn’t bet against it.

GO DEEPER

Three games in is too early to trust the Premier League table... or is it?

Campbell: Considering Arsenal’s missing players, yes, they are weaker, but that need to capitalise brings its own pressure for Spurs.

Arteta signing a new three-year contract, however, should re-energise Arsenal and balance out any pessimism.

It is a statement of intent that says Arsenal are not content with being challengers. They want more and a win at Spurs would be the perfect way to show they are not going anywhere.

Want all the latest Arsenal news, analysis and additional insight from James McNicholas, Amy Lawrence, David Ornstein, Art de Roche, Jordan Campbell and more? Join our new Arsenal WhatsApp channel

Are we in for another exciting derby?

Harris: This fixture always produces drama. Postecoglou’s philosophy is all about dominating the ball and pressuring the other team high up the pitch. When it works, as in their 4-0 victory over Everton last month, Tottenham do not let their opponents breathe and they score goals for fun.

The style of play comes with a lot of risk. Spurs push so many players forward that they leave themselves vulnerable to counter-attacks. Saka’s goal in Arsenal’s 3-2 victory at the end of last season is a prime example of this. As can be seen below, Spurs dominated possession and territory but Arsenal took their chances.

Harry Kane is no longer at Spurs but Son Heung-min remains a threat. The speed of Brennan Johnson and Wilson Odobert will cause problems for Arsenal’s full-backs, too. Solanke will make his home debut if he recovers from an ankle injury and scoring would be the perfect way to mark it.

Campbell: Arsenal were relentlessly efficient in the 3-2 win last season, making the most of their dominance from dead-ball situations.

But in last season’s first meeting, the enduring issue of playing well but spurning big chances prevented them from killing off the game early. Gabriel Jesus was most guilty and with the Brazilian potentially filling in for Kai Havertz up front, the question of whether Arsenal have enough killer instinct hangs over them.

Transitions will be key again for both teams and a first start for Raheem Sterling could help Arsenal add that extra incisiveness. Goals seem inevitable but do not be surprised to see Arteta employ a slightly more restrained, counter-attacking approach to compensate for the absence of Rice and Odegaard.

How might Arsenal’s midfield injuries affect things?

Campbell: Arsenal will probably be without what Arteta intended to be his first-choice midfield this season, with Mikel Merino and Odegaard both injured and Rice suspended.

The sale of Emile Smith Rowe and the loan exit of Fabio Vieira means Arsenal cannot replicate the balance they would usually have.

Havertz dropping into midfield, with Jesus taking his place up front, is a natural solution to the left-sided central-midfielder gap, but Jorginho and Thomas Partey are the only other senior conventional midfielders available. Partey being pushed forward slightly to allow the Italian to play at No 6 is one option, as is tweaking the shape to employ a double pivot, but both players can leave Arsenal lacking mobility and creativity.

Dropping Leandro Trossard back to play alongside Havertz would be an aggressive move but would risk leaving Arsenal too open. Shifting either Oleksandr Zinchenko or Jurrien Timber forward into midfield could help Arteta maximise continuity in their build-up play.

The closest thing to a like-for-like Odegaard replacement is 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri. It would be his first senior start but he could help Arsenal maintain their balance. Using an inexperienced teenager would also be the strongest rebuttal Arteta could serve to those sceptical of his willingness to trust academy players.

GO DEEPER

How do Arsenal adapt if they are missing Odegaard and other first-choice midfielders?

Harris: James Maddison is the only midfielder to have started all of Tottenham’s games this season. The 27-year-old has been accompanied by a rotating cast of Rodrigo Bentancur, Yves Bissouma, Pape Matar Sarr or Dejan Kulusevski, depending on the quality of the opposition.

In the second half of their 2-1 defeat by Newcastle, Spurs seemed to strike the right balance with a combination of Bissouma, Maddison and Kulusevski. The former protected the back four, Maddison dropped into pockets of space and sprayed passes across the pitch while Kulusevski drove forward with the ball into threatening positions. It would be a bold call by Postecoglou to start this trio against Arsenal but it might be exactly what is required to take advantage of Rice, Merino and Odegaard’s absences. If Postecoglou wants to be a little more cautious, expect to see Sarr slot in alongside Maddison and Bissouma.

Carey: There were only three games in which Odegaard did not start in the Premier League last season. Two of those were against relegated teams — Burnley and Sheffield United — making Arsenal’s match at Newcastle a decent example of how they set up in the Norwegian’s absence.

Looking at their passing network (below), it is encouraging to see that those right-sided triangles remained and Saka was not dragged deeper. On that day, Havertz was tasked with playing in the right-sided central-midfield role but, this weekend, he is more likely to play to the left or up front.

Having Zinchenko or Timber as ball-playing inside full-backs will add strength to the midfield, so you would expect to see greater numbers in central areas compared with the above graphic, where Jorginho was tasked with locking things down almost single-handedly.

Whoever plays, expect to see the same principles of play with Arsenal and a focus on wide rotations to stretch Spurs’ back line.

Would a win be more significant for Postecoglou or Arteta?

Harris: Postecoglou’s second season in charge of Tottenham has started underwhelmingly. They dominated for large spells against Leicester and Newcastle but failed to win. They tore Everton apart and demonstrated how devastating they can be when everything clicks, but Arsenal will be their toughest test yet.

Tottenham have lost to Arsenal at home for two successive seasons. They only earned one point against them last year and the last time they beat Arsenal was in May 2022 when Antonio Conte was still in charge. If Postecoglou can guide them to victory on Sunday, it would kick their season into gear and be a huge statement of intent.

If Spurs lose, they will have only taken four points out of a possible 12 and the arguments about Postecoglou’s entertaining but divisive style of play will become much louder.

Campbell: This was always going to be the start of a huge week, with a north London derby, a Champions League opener and a visit to Manchester City crammed into eight days.

But the 1-1 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion means the pressure on beating Spurs is already ramping up.

Arteta and his Arsenal players can lean on recent triumphs. They have become a team that thrives in big matches. After beating Spurs in May 2022, they went on a 17-game unbeaten streak in London derbies. Against the so-called ‘Big Six’ last season, they took 22 points from 30, becoming only the fourth team to go unbeaten against their rivals in a single season.

A win would not be as significant to Arteta as he has re-established the upper hand in the fixture over the past two seasons but in the context of chasing City, this already feels like a must-win.

What are the key tactical battles?

Harris: Watching Udogie take on Saka will be exciting and Solanke has the difficult task of escaping William Saliba’s clutches.

The key match-up, however, could be Bissouma against Havertz. The Germany international is expected to drop into midfield and, if fit, Bissouma will have the responsibility of tracking his dangerous runs into the box. Bissouma has produced two solid performances after missing the opening game of the season through suspension but can he step up against elite opposition? If Bissouma is not fit enough to play, that task could fall to Bentancur. The Uruguayan is available to start, three days after being charged by the FA over comments he made about team-mate Son.

Keep an eye on Maddison and whoever is tasked with marking him, too. Jorginho and Partey are far less mobile than Rice and Merino, which means Maddison might get that crucial extra second he needs to play a killer pass.

Campbell: It was the pressing of both teams that dominated the first fixture last season and the set-piece superiority of Arsenal that proved decisive in the second game.

Both of those aspects could prove key again, especially if Arsenal field a less dynamic midfield three. Jorginho was caught dithering on the ball in the 2-2 draw as both teams aggressively pressed the first line of build-up (as can be seen from their above-average ‘high press’ scores in The Athletic’s match dashboard below).

Postecoglou will hope his team are better equipped to deal with that challenge, having had a year to get used to his methods. When Pedro Porro and Udogie drift into the centre, Arsenal’s midfield will need to ensure there is no space for Maddison and Bissouma to dictate play.

Carey: One of Arsenal’s key strengths last season was their suffocating, relentless high press.

Their title challenge was built on rock-solid defensive foundations, and that was not exclusively because of their classy centre-backs — it was from their co-ordinated attackers not letting the opposition play out comfortably.

Sure, we are in a new season now but it is worth keeping an eye out for this part of the game when Spurs have the ball in their own third. If both sides show similar character traits from last season, there could be a key tactical battle at one particular end of the field.

How to watch Tottenham vs Arsenal

Sunday, September 15, 2pm BST/9am ET. Watch live on Sky Sports in the UK or USA Network in the United States.

Recommended reading

Dominic Solanke’s journey to becoming Tottenham Hotspur’s £65million ($85.1m) club-record signing has not been conventional.

When he was scoring goals for fun as a teenager in Chelsea’s academy, training alongside Didier Drogba and Diego Costa with the first team, it was assumed he would make a smooth transition into becoming one of the best strikers in the Premier League.

It took a lot longer than was expected. Solanke made one appearance for his boyhood club and a promising move to Liverpool did not work out either.

The centre-forward rebuilt his career with Bournemouth and arrived at Spurs as Harry Kane’s replacement this summer. Ange Postecoglou will hope he plays a leading role in his revolution.

Missing a glorious chance on his debut away to Leicester City and suffering an ankle injury that ruled him out of their next two games was not the ideal start to his Spurs career.

The good news is that Postecoglou confirmed on Friday afternoon that he has trained this week and has a chance of being fit enough to face Arsenal on Sunday. Solanke will become an instant hit with Tottenham’s supporters if he scores in a win against their north London rivals — it would be the perfect way to celebrate turning 27 on Saturday.

Solanke joined Chelsea’s academy as an under-8. He was chauffeured from his home on the outskirts of Basingstoke to training by Adi Viveash, who held a variety of roles in Chelsea’s youth-team setup for nearly a decade, including as head coach of the under-18’s and then the under-21s.

Solanke won the FA Youth Cup twice with Chelsea and scored in the 2015 UEFA Youth League final when they beat Shakhtar Donetsk 3-2 in Switzerland. He was named their academy player of the season in 2014-15 after he scored 41 goals.

“Arsene Wenger saw him in an FA Youth Cup semi-final,” Viveash, who left his role as Coventry City assistant manager in July, told The Athletic this year. “Dom was 16, the second leg was at the Emirates, and Wenger said to me that he hadn’t seen anybody play like that — able to play in (a combination of) the two positions (No 9 and No 10) at a young age and have that football intelligence.

“Him and Tammy (Abraham) scored a ridiculous amount of goals coming through at youth level — it was like a competition — and then, for whatever reason, Dom’s career didn’t go in the path that I certainly thought it would. If there was anyone I would have put my hat on (hitting the top), it was him.”

Solanke’s time at Chelsea overlapped with Jose Mourinho’s second spell in charge. Mourinho spoke highly of Solanke and gave him his debut in a Champions League game against Maribor in October 2014. It was his only appearance. He spent the 2015-16 season on loan with Dutch side Vitesse Arnhem and was frozen out of Chelsea’s plans when he returned due to a contract dispute. In an interview with The Athletic in February, Solanke said his appearance against Maribor felt like a “token”.

“There wasn’t really anyone breaking through to the first team,” he said. “I don’t think there had been anyone who had gone through and stayed there since John Terry. There were some great young players and we were all trying to be the one, but we knew it was going to be difficult because Chelsea could just sign whoever they wanted.”

Solanke’s eye-catching performances for England’s youth teams underlined his talent. He helped them win the Under-17 European Championship in 2014 and was the joint-top scorer at the tournament alongside Jari Schuurman of the Netherlands. He scored twice in a group-stage game against Turkey to help England come from behind to win 4-1, found the back of the net in a 2-0 victory over Portugal in the semi-finals, and gave his side the lead in the final against the Netherlands, which they won on penalties.

John Peacock was in charge of England’s Under-17s and remembers Solanke was “always smiling” and “took on board everything that was asked of him”.

“There was a lot of noise around him because of his ability to score goals and be part of a successful academy team at Chelsea,” Peacock says. “He had a good support network around him. He was a quiet and unassuming character.

“We had an extremely difficult group (at the Euros) and Dominic, like the rest of the team, had to come up with really good performances to qualify for the knockout stage. His technical work and decision-making were of a high level. He is persistent and never lets defenders rest.

“When he was at the finals, he had to do his GSCE exams. He took that in his stride and came away with a lot of A*s. The day before or after we won the final, he had another exam. That shows you the concentration and desire he has to succeed at whatever he does.”

Peacock left his role with the Football Association shortly after that tournament but returned three years later on a short-term contract as an advisor to help the under-20s at the World Cup in South Korea in 2017. Paul Simpson was the head coach and led a team which included Solanke, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Ademola Lookman — who finished second with Nigeria at the Africa Cup of Nations this year — Fikayo Tomori and Lewis Cook to a 1-0 victory over Venezuela in the final. Solanke was the player of the tournament.

“The big goal for me would be Mexico in the quarter-finals,” Peacock says. “Lewis Cook played a fantastic through ball and Dominic slotted it away. It wasn’t an easy chance to take.”

In that summer, Solanke left Chelsea to join Liverpool. A few months later, Gareth Southgate called him up to England’s senior squad for the first time. The forward made his debut in a 0-0 draw with Brazil at Wembley when he replaced Jamie Vardy. It looked like his career was back on track.

Eighteen months later, he left Anfield with one goal in 27 games — with Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino as competition — and has not played for England since.

Solanke’s £19million move to Bournemouth in January 2019 was a fresh start. Joshua King and Callum Wilson were the first-choice strikers under Eddie Howe, so Solanke, who was 21, was mainly restricted to coming off the bench.

“He was pleased to find himself somewhere he would be loved,” Steve Cook, who was a senior member of Bournemouth’s squad, tells The Athletic. “He was so good at such a young age, there were massive expectations and that can weigh heavily. He played for two giant clubs where it was going to be difficult to get minutes. He came ready to work and with a lot to prove.”

Things did not go according to plan. Solanke suffered from a few niggling injuries and finished the 2018-19 campaign without a goal. His struggles continued the following season. “We didn’t speak about the lack of goals,” Junior Stanislas, a team-mate on the south coast, says. “His quality was evident in training. His hold-up play, skills and willingness to run in behind — he was someone you always wanted on your team. He brought so much more than goals.”

Solanke found the back of the net for the first time in a 4-1 victory over Leicester in July 2020. It was his 39th appearance for Bournemouth and 60th in the top flight. He only had to wait 20 minutes for his next — a stylish finish with the outside of his right boot that nutmegged Kasper Schmeichel. That result left Howe’s side three points from safety with three games remaining.

“His first goal was massive,” Steve Cook says. “It was a game we had to win, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to stay up. It wasn’t the prettiest of goals and it crept across the line. I don’t think Dom showed he was struggling, he just cracked on. Everyone was delighted for him.”

Stanislas, who is now an academy coach at Bournemouth, believes dropping down into the Championship was “a blessing in disguise” for Solanke. Wilson moved to Newcastle United, while King joined Everton midway through the 2020-21 season. This left Solanke as the main striker under head coach Jason Tindall.

Solanke scored 15 times in the second tier, playing with “freedom” upfront alongside Stanislas and Arnaut Danjuma, but it was a turbulent year in the dugout. Tindall was sacked and replaced by Jonathan Woodgate at the beginning of 2021 before Scott Parker took over in June. Solanke produced the most productive season of his career under Parker, with 29 goals and seven assists in 46 appearances to fire Bournemouth to promotion.

“There were changes with personnel, so there were fresh ideas and you had a young, hungry squad,” Stanislas says. “Dom was confident and you knew you had a goalscorer that you could rely on.

“He is a willing runner, someone who can go in behind, take the pressure off, stretch the line and get you up the pitch. He is just as comfortable coming to feet and he brings others into play. Someone who can do both is difficult to defend against.”

The confidence was flowing and nothing summed up Solanke’s evolution like the 1-1 draw with promotion rivals Fulham. Bournemouth were losing 1-0 when he stepped up to take a penalty in stoppage time. “It was two teams right at the top of the league and it was a big moment,” Stanislas says. “He scored late on and when you’re playing against rivals you have to pick up points. It was a big goal.”

Cook had joined Nottingham Forest and came up against Solanke after Bournemouth’s draw with Fulham. “He has got everything,” the 33-year-old defender, who now plays for Queens Park Rangers, says.

“He has mixed with some top strikers and taken bits from all of them. He can drop into the No 10 position and roam. You never know whether to follow him or stay. When he is confident, his finishing is fantastic. It was a great challenge and difficult coming up against him in training. What stands out is his willingness to learn.”

Solanke produced a modest return of six goals and seven assists during Bournemouth’s first year back in the top flight. He played a direct part in all of the goals in a 3-2 victory over Spurs in April 2023. The forward pressed Pedro Porro and Davinson Sanchez in the build-up to Bournemouth’s first, scored the second and set up Dango Ouattara’s winner.

Solanke’s work rate is one of the reasons Postecoglou was keen to sign him. Nine of the 10 players who covered the most distance in the top flight last season were central midfielders. Solanke was the exception as he ranked eighth by covering 396.9 kilometres.

Andoni Iraola’s appointment as Bournemouth’s head coach helped Solanke hit a new level. He finished with 19 goals in 38 appearances, including a hat-trick against Forest. Iraola said in December that he was becoming “a complete No 9”.

The bigger clubs were on his radar again.

“I don’t think you can ever say someone will be a top performer, but I always felt Dominic would have a good career,” Peacock says. “There are going to be knockbacks and it is about overcoming them. Through resilience and hard work, he has another great challenge in front of him at Tottenham.”

That part of his character is one of the reasons Postecoglou was attracted to him.

“I got a real sense he had a burning desire to take his football to another level and challenge himself at a big club,” Postecoglou said on signing Solanke. “We have got him at a good time. He has had to work his way back up, which is a good thing.”

It is a daunting task replacing Kane, Spurs’ all-time top scorer, but Solanke, according to his former team-mates and coaches, will take the challenge head-on. If he can match or surpass the amount of goals he scored last season, he will not have to wait too much longer for a second England cap.

(Top photo: Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)

Arsenal are set to wear their away kit against Tottenham Hotspur in the north London derby on Sunday.

Ahead of the game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium it has been ruled that Arsenal’s 2024-25 home kit includes too much white, with the back and side of the shirt blending into the white shorts, and therefore clashing with Spurs’ traditional home colours.

The Premier League’s rule M.22 states that clubs “shall wear a strip that differs visibly from and contrasts with one another” for each match.

Arsenal’s away kit has been deemed to provide sufficient contrast and they have therefore been asked to change.

A change would still have been required if Arsenal had proposed wearing red shorts and socks, an option that was also discussed.

It will be the first time in modern history that Arsenal will wear their change colours in a north London derby.

Tottenham will also sport their away kit for the reverse fixture at Emirates Stadium in January. Spurs’ away kit is light blue and takes inspiration from the club’s away kits from the 1980s.

Arsenal’s black away kit this term was designed to celebrate what the club describe as “the rich and well-established connection the club has to the African diaspora in north London beyond”.

It was worn for the 2-0 away win over Aston Villa last month.

GO DEEPER

Arsenal fan survey results: Title prospects, transfer verdicts - and who was the best signing?

(Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

David Pleat can still remember the names, 64 years on.

He was a 15-year-old boy when Tottenham Hotspur came to the City Ground to play Pleat’s local team, Nottingham Forest.

It was 15 October, 1960. The Beatles were still in Hamburg. John F. Kennedy had not won the presidential election yet and Bill Nicholson’s Spurs were the best team in the country. They won 4-0 that afternoon, John White scoring the best of their goals. They went on to win the domestic double, the first English team to do so since 1897.

“That was the greatest team I saw, no question about that,” Pleat says with a smile. “To this day, I can tell you (the starting XI): (Bill) Brown, (Peter) Baker, (Ron) Henry, (Danny) Blanchflower, (Maurice) Norman, (Dave) Mackay, (Terry) Dyson, (John) White, (Bobby) Smith, Les Allen and Cliff Jones. I never forget that side. That was the side that I hold up. And, in my opinion, that side was probably the best side Tottenham have had all through the years, whatever anyone says about the differences between modern football and latterly.”

That afternoon, Tottenham took a place in Pleat’s heart. They would always be his favourite team, after the one he was playing for or coaching. And that memory, that linking of Tottenham with a certain approach to the game, inspired a lifetime’s work.

Pleat finally had his chance to manage Spurs in 1986. He went on to return to the club as director of football, caretaker manager in multiple spells and then, finally, as a scout. His association with the club ended this summer, 38 years after he first worked there. Pleat tells the story of his life in football in his autobiography Just One More Goal, which is out next week.

It makes Pleat a unique figure in Tottenham’s modern history.

He is one of the few people to work closely for Irving Scholar, Alan Sugar and for Daniel Levy — the three men who have chaired Tottenham over the last 40 years. He managed Ossie Ardiles, Chris Waddle and Glenn Hoddle, and even replaced Hoddle as caretaker manager in 2003. And his legacy at Spurs is still there. Of the current team, Son Heung-min, Ben Davies and James Maddison were all scouted by Pleat. Perhaps his proudest moment was unearthing Dele Alli from MK Dons and persuading the club to sign him, one of the club’s best transfers of the modern era.

But long before Pleat was a scout, caretaker manager or director of football, he was the manager of an exceptionally good Spurs team.

Pleat was at Luton Town for eight years, taking them from the Second Division and into the top half of the top flight. During that time he was mentioned as a potential England manager, and turned down offers to leave Luton for various other sides: Sunderland, Ipswich Town, Southampton and Queens Park Rangers. “I met all these people over a period of time who all wanted me to leave Luton and I didn’t,” he says. “I waited and waited.”

The right move came when he took a call from a friend of Irving Scholar asking if he might want to replace Peter Shreeves at Spurs. Pleat jumped at the chance, taking over after being an ITV pundit at the 1986 World Cup. “Tottenham still had a wonderful reputation for playing football in the right way,” he says. “As Blanchflower said, the game is about glory. People go to work five days a week, they come on a Saturday; they don’t want to be bored.

“They want excitement, they want something to talk about.”

Pleat was excited by the challenge of living up to the best traditions of the club. And he had far more established players at his disposal than he did at Kenilworth Road: Hoddle, Chris Waddle and Osvaldo Ardiles. “The players were already there,” Pleat says. “It was just a matter of fitting them in the right compartments.”

Spurs started slowly but an injury to Tony Galvin forced a re-think. Pleat decided to try an innovative five-man midfield behind a lone striker in Clive Allen. “Hoddle finally settled in the best position ever for him,” Pleat says. “There was always that in a two-man midfield — that Glenn didn’t do the same amount of work. Of course he didn’t, he was a talented player, he was a player people were in awe of.

“We put Glenn in the end as a second striker, a ‘loose striker’, he could do what he wanted to do. He didn’t have to defend.”

Out on the right was Waddle, so wide that he “got his boots white”. Paul Allen was “the ferret” in the middle, alongside Ardiles who was the “link man”. On the left was Steve Hodge, signed from Aston Villa halfway through that season. “He had wonderful energy, terrific work rate, never appreciated by the crowd,” Pleat says. “But he played left-sided, wide left, inside-left and left-half.”

After a 4-2 win at Oxford on 22 November, Tottenham “turned a corner and never looked back”. They went on a brilliant run in the league, eventually finishing third. They reached the semi-final of the League Cup and the final of the FA Cup, where they faced Coventry City. Spurs were favourites but lost 3-2 in one of the most memorable finals in history.

Pleat still sounds disappointed 37 years on, and is still able to analyse the game in great detail: pointing to the man-marking job Lloyd McGrath did on Hoddle, the aerial advantage Cyrille Regis had over Richard Gough, the struggle of Spurs left-back Mitchell Thomas to stop Dave Bennett from getting crosses in, and the failure of referee Neil Midgley to send Brian Kilcline off for a bad foul on Gary Mabbutt. “He was badly injured, that was a terrible turning point.”

The whole experience Pleat calls a “bad dream”.

It is a sign of how much football — and the manager’s job — has changed since then that Pleat’s weekend was overshadowed by a row about Spurs’ shirts. A mix-up meant that only half of the team had the name of sponsor Holsten on the front. An emergency board meeting was called at Tottenham the next morning to find out what happened, and Pleat had to attend a meeting with Holsten the day after to smooth relations with the brewing company that provided such a lucrative deal.

Spurs also pressed ahead with their plans for an open-top bus parade from White Hart Lane to Tottenham Town Hall, even though they had lost and despite torrential rain. “It p***ed with rain. People were getting soaked who came to watch us. There weren’t a lot of people, not crowds. Coventry were having a massive procession. And we were forlorn.”

Pleat resigned the following season but remains hugely proud of that innovative, nearly great Spurs team. Of course, the 1960-61 team is the pinnacle but Pleat ranks his side as “the third-best, in terms of attractive football”. He was also a huge admirer of Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs team, who went one better than Pleat’s, finishing second in the league in 2016-17. “Pochettino got a very good side together,” he says, “and he was a pleasant man, a nice man.”

Ultimately, Pleat knows that any Tottenham manager — from Nicholson to Ange Postecoglou — has to meet expectations from the fans about trying to play a certain way. “We will never lose that. I think (Jose) Mourinho proved that. And even George (Graham) proved that.”

Because Pleat’s return to Tottenham was in part dominated by the question of who was the right sort of manager for Spurs.

In 1998, Alan Sugar wanted some more football expertise in the White Hart Lane boardroom. And he decided to bring back Pleat, 11 years after his departure, as the club’s first director of football. This was a new step for a big English club but Sugar had seen the model work in Italy and wanted to try it in England.

“Sugar and (then Ipswich chairman David Sheepshanks) wrote a letter to the League Managers’ Association saying why directors of football should be important to a club,” Pleat says. “They keep the strategy of the club, the philosophy of the club, regardless of who the manager is. They’re the buffer between the dressing room and the board. We had people on the board who were from commerce, stockbroking, lawyers, (Spurs board member) Igal Yawetz who was a brilliant architect. Most boards have no one with a football background.”

Pleat repeatedly calls Sugar a “visionary” for seeing this, and for appointing him to the job at Spurs.

A few months after Pleat arrived, Sugar told him he had a new idea. He was going to appoint former Arsenal manager Graham.

Pleat had known Graham for almost 40 years — they played against each other for England and Scotland schoolboys — but he sensed there would be an issue. “What Sugar didn’t realise is how George played,” Pleat says. “He thought George’s record was so good that people would forgive him if he gets the results. George had a reputation for being solid, well-organised, defensive-minded. With a clear definition of how he wanted to play.”

Graham’s approach to the game was not exactly in the best traditions of Nicholson and Blanchflower. He had an issue with David Ginola, whom he wanted to drop back into midfield to compete for second balls rather than staying out wide on the wing. Ginola used to come into Pleat’s office after training and discuss it with him. Pleat, who built his own Spurs team with Waddle as a wide winger, sympathised with Ginola. “I loved David Ginola, I loved him — as a man, everything about him.”

Eventually, Graham was sacked and replaced by Hoddle but the hope of a new Spurs team in the traditions of the club did not materialise. Pleat himself ended up having to replace his former player Hoddle as caretaker for most of the 2003-04 season.

Pleat left Spurs at the end of that season and was replaced by Frank Arnesen, starting the succession of directors of football (and managing directors of football and technical directors) that goes all the way through Damien Comolli, Franco Baldini, Fabio Paratici through to Johan Lange today.

But there was another big change during Pleat’s time at Spurs at the start of this century: the arrival of Levy as chairman, ending Sugar’s nine-year spell in charge. Pleat remembers Sugar taking him to meet Levy soon after ENIC had bought Sugar’s shares, in Levy’s office off Regent Street. “I want you to go and meet this man who’s going to take over Tottenham,” Sugar said. Sugar told Levy that Pleat would help him to “learn the ropes”.

Pleat has a rare perspective on Tottenham’s modern history given he worked so closely with their last three chairmen. So how do they compare?

“Scholar was self-confident, almost to the extent of arrogance, and wanted to run perhaps before he could walk,” Pleat says. “Alan Sugar was brusque, could be gruff, but he had humour at times. I have lovely memories of him walking around the boardroom table, munching his grapes, his cheese and his celery.”

And Levy? “Daniel is a quiet man. Businesslike. You don’t know what he’s thinking, which is very clever; he’s got a poker face, expressionless at times. He’s a very clever man. But he’s made a lot of changes.”

Pleat’s modern legacy at Spurs concerns his return to the club as a scout in 2010. He truly loves footballers and he lights up when discussing the players he watched and recommended to Spurs. He knows how common it is for people to burnish their own records in this regard — “Every book I read, all the scouts all saw Bale, all went to their manager and said ‘sign Bale, sign Bale” — but he gives an honest of account of the players he did watch.

Spurs signed Son from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015 but Pleat watched him before then at Hamburg, when he was available for just £12million ($15.8m). But Son was returning from injury, did not look fit enough, and was part of a poor Hamburg team.

Pleat watched Christian Eriksen at Ajax and thought at that point he was “erratic, maybe a one-in-three player”, before he found more consistency. But he saw Jan Vertonghen at Ajax, too, and immediately saw what a “leader” he was. He watched Ben Davies at Swansea City, another link to the current team.

Pleat is best known for finding Dele at MK Dons, watching him from the age of 16 in League One. He still remembers the games — Stevenage, Bristol City, Coventry City — and taking Baldini to watch him. Pleat then persuaded the club to pay £5m to sign him. When Dele was established in the Spurs first team, Pleat proudly handed a slightly non-plussed Dele a folder of all the reports he had written on him.

When Tottenham were celebrating their last game at the old White Hart Lane, in May 2017, Levy made a speech in the boardroom thanking everyone for their work to get Spurs to that point. And Pleat, who was there with his grandson, was proud to hear Levy thank him especially for finding Dele, as well as for all his work for the club over the years.

Soon after finding Dele, Pleat found another brilliant 16-year-old playing for Coventry City’s Under-18s against QPR. “The boy (James) Maddison was so good it was like he had eyes in the back of his head,” Pleat smiles. He bumped into Harry Redknapp at half-time who said exactly the same thing. “I went into Tottenham the following morning and said, ‘There’s a boy at Coventry we should sign tomorrow.’ It was an open goal. A tortoise couldn’t have gone slower. They didn’t chase it.”

When Maddison signed for Spurs last year, Pleat joked with him that he was “£40million too late”.

Some players never end up at Spurs at all. Pleat says that he advised Tottenham to sign Jarrod Bowen for £8million from Hull City, Ivan Toney for a similar price, and Ollie Watkins when he was still a box-to-box midfielder at Exeter City. He warns big clubs not to think that the only players good enough for them cost £40m from foreign leagues, and points to the fact that in the 1980s Spurs signed Galvin from Goole Town, Graham Roberts from Weymouth and Mabbutt from Bristol Rovers.

Pleat still has a traditional view on the value of old-fashioned scouting in a fast-changing game. And even though he left Spurs this summer, he still loves the chase, hearing tips on who the best young players are, driving around to watch games, hoping to catch sight of the next big thing.

“The data people, they’re intelligent boys from university who’ve done wonderful dissertations,” Pleat says. “(But) they haven’t been in a dressing room and smelled the liniment. They don’t know that side of it. They’re more intelligent than most football people, and they’re very good at expressing themselves. They’re looking at lung-bursting runs, at intensity, at all sorts of things. But in the end, someone has to go with their eyes and ears.”

Nicholson worked as a scout at Spurs long after he stopped managing, finding some of the players Pleat would go on to manage. Pleat used to see him at Kenilworth Road and asked him why he came all the way to Luton to watch games, staying longer than any of the other scouts who were there.

Nicholson told him: “You’ll be surprised what you learn.”

(Top photo: Pleat upon his appointment at Tottenham in 1986; S&G/PA Images via Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur’s technical director Johan Lange has done an impressive job this summer of selling players on the fringes of Ange Postecoglou’s first-team squad.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg moved to Marseille on loan with an obligation to buy. Oliver Skipp joined Leicester City permanently in a deal which could reach £25million ($32.9m). Emerson Royal is now at AC Milan. Tanguy Ndombele, Ryan Sessegnon and Japhet Tanganga were released. The money was reinvested and the quality of the squad has been raised. The £65m club-record signing of Dominic Solanke should solve a lot of problems up front. Teenagers Lucas Bergvall, Wilson Odobert and Archie Gray have been bought for the future but are ready to contribute straight away.

Postecoglou will be happy he has a much tighter squad to work with. He also has more individuals who suit his philosophy. The newly-expanded version of the Europa League should afford players who are not in the starting XI regular minutes compared to last season when there was no European football and Spurs were eliminated from both domestic cup competitions early.

Heading into the final week of August, Spurs still needed to shift two players: Giovani Lo Celso and Sergio Reguilon. Lo Celso directly contributed to four goals in 22 appearances last season but only started on four occasions and racked up 497 minutes. The midfielder has been a key figure in Argentina’s back-to-back Copa America triumphs but he has never come close to having the same impact at Tottenham.

He joined them in August 2019, initially on loan, from Real Betis. After his move was made permanent, he struggled to establish himself in the first team, then spent 18 months on loan with Villarreal before a brief comeback under Postecoglou. He then sealed a return to Betis last week.

This leaves Reguilon as the last man standing in Tottenham’s outcasts; not a part of Postecoglou’s plans but with a year left on his contract. The left-back’s most recent appearance for Spurs was in a 1-0 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion in April 2022 when Antonio Conte was still in charge. Since then, he has spent time on loan with Atletico Madrid, Manchester United and Brentford.

The 27-year-old returned to Hotspur Way at the start of pre-season but was left out of their tour to Japan and South Korea to “explore transfer opportunities”. Reguilon made two appearances for Manchester United in the Champions League last season and wants to return to that level but there was minimal interest in him this summer. There was tentative interest from Barcelona at the beginning of August which never progressed any further. Time is running out as there are only a small number of transfer windows still open including Belgium (September 6), Greece (September 11) and Turkey (September 13).

Last Friday, Postecoglou said that Lo Celso and Reguilon “don’t have to get integrated back into the squad” if they failed to secure moves away — this was before the former’s reunion with Betis was announced.

“It’s pretty clear where they sit in terms of where we are as a squad and where we are as a team,” Postecoglou said. “But I’ve never been one to force people out. They’ve got decisions (to make) about their own careers and what they want to do. And if they’re still here, they’re still here. We’ll work around that scenario. But it certainly won’t affect the way we work in the first team.”

The problem for Reguilon is that he does not fit Postecoglou’s ethos. The left-back likes to overlap and fire crosses into the box for strikers to attack. He picked up two assists in Brentford’s 3-3 draw with Aston Villa in April by doing exactly that.

Postecoglou wants his full-backs to move inside and join the build-up. There were times during last Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Newcastle United when Destiny Udogie was more advanced in central areas than James Maddison when Spurs were playing out from the back. There are parallels between Reguilon and Ben Chilwell, who finds himself in a similar situation at Chelsea under their new head coach Enzo Maresca. Football at the elite level is moving away from overlapping full-backs, and Reguilon and Chilwell are two unfortunate victims.

It is a strange sequence of events because Reguilon’s performances were initially encouraging on his arrival from Real Madrid in September 2020 for £27.5million. He had spent the previous season on loan with Sevilla, helping them finish fourth in the Spanish top flight and win the Europa League.

As The Athletic reported in April, there is an internal perception at Tottenham that when things aren’t going well or Reguilon is not being selected to play, he is not the easiest character. The outlook is the Spain international, who has six caps, really needs to feel loved to thrive. At Spurs, he is not going to get enough football for that.

Reguilon has spoken publicly of his dissatisfaction with what he perceived to be mixed messaging from Spurs last summer too. “One day is ‘yes’, next day is ‘no’,” he told The Times in March when asked about finding out that he was no longer part of the club’s plans. “I didn’t understand and still don’t understand the situation.”

Reguilon’s dilemma looked to be the opposite of Djed Spence, whose future was also uncertain at the beginning of the summer. Spence impressed throughout pre-season and did enough to convince Postecoglou he deserved a chance. Postecoglou spoke about how the 24-year-old Spence “fits into our football”, which does not apply to Reguilon. Spence replaced Udogie at left-back in the 4-0 victory over Everton. However, Spence, like Reguilon, has since been left out of Spurs’ Europa League squad.

Reguilon spent the first half of the 2023-24 campaign with Manchester United and made 12 appearances in all competitions. United’s head coach Erik ten Hag sanctioned his return to north London in January because Tyrell Malacia and Luke Shaw were close to returning from injury. Malacia did not make a single appearance last season while Shaw returned for four games in February before suffering a problem with his hamstring which kept him out until July.

Reguilon then joined Brentford on loan to provide cover while first-choice full-backs Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey recovered from long-term injuries. He was sent off in a 2-1 defeat to Burnley but was solid defensively and recorded four assists in 16 appearances.

Reguilon’s wages were a stumbling block to a permanent move. He has been on around £100,000 a week at Spurs — double the amount Brentford’s highest earners are on. They only covered a portion of his wages during his loan spell.

Brentford made two defensive signings this summer, Sepp van den Berg — who can cover multiple positions — and 18-year-old left-back Jayden Meghoma. All of their signings were aged 23 and below as they looked to build a squad for the long term.

Henry is back in full training but has not played since he suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle United last September. Hickey has suffered a setback and underwent another operation on his hamstring last week, which means he is expected to miss most of the season. Brentford’s head coach Thomas Frank has used right-footed defender Kristoffer Ajer or central midfielder Vitaly Janelt as emergency left-backs. Despite the lack of options, they never seriously considered a reunion with Reguilon.

The lack of genuine interest has left Reguilon, who received his last international cap in September 2021, in a state of limbo. A full-back with great attacking instincts is in danger of spending the next six months stuck on the sidelines.

(Top photo: Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)

Alfie Devine is to join Belgian club KVC Westerlo on loan from Tottenham Hotspur.

The 20-year-old is leaving north London on a temporary basis to gain more first-team minutes elsewhere. The deal is a straight loan, with no option or obligation to buy the midfielder.

Devine will now play his football in the Belgian Pro League for the 2024-25 season.

The Athletic previously reported that Spurs were working to find a loan move for Devine.

GO DEEPER

Alfie Devine, My Football Journey: 'There's no one better to look up to than Harry Kane'

A proposed loan to Birmingham City fell through but other options were being explored.

Devine, who made his senior debut for the club in January 2021, has spent spells at Port Vale and Plymouth Argyle in recent seasons.

He has made two senior appearances for Spurs and scored one goal.

Spurs are next in action against rivals Arsenal on September 15 after the international break.

(Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)

It’s not uncommon that a single player best summarises the story of a match.

Normally, that would be somebody who took the game concerned by storm, maybe scored a goal or two, or was the playmaker controlling the field. However, Newcastle United’s scrappy 2-1 home win against Tottenham Hotspur yesterday was best summarised by Joelinton — not for goals, but due to the Brazilian’s abrasive, all-action role in coach Eddie Howe’s midfield.

Despite Newcastle taking the three points, this wasn’t their most impressive performance on the ball, with Howe’s team missing their usual passing combinations in wide areas. Down their left, Joelinton’s brightest moments came when battling for the ball in midfield or dropping to support his full-back, Lloyd Kelly.

Repurposing the successful approach that resulted in them winning 4-0 when Spurs went to St James’ Park last season, Newcastle pressed man to man and defended in a 5-4-1 shape to limit the visitors’ wide combinations and control the threat of their full-backs.

Again, Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes didn’t drop to help form the back five, which meant they were in a position to strike on the counter-attack once Newcastle won the ball. Instead, that job was assigned to Joelinton, who dropped in next to Kelly in a left wing-back position when the home team were defending in their own half.

In the first 45 minutes, Newcastle’s defensive organisation limited Tottenham to shots from outside the penalty area and chances from set pieces. The switch to a back five without the ball meant Pedro Porro and Destiny Udogie couldn’t overload Newcastle’s defensive line.

In this example below, Joelinton’s positioning allows Kelly to keep an eye on Porro’s darting run and prevents right-winger Wilson Odobert from receiving the ball comfortably if James Maddison passes it out wide.

In another example, Kelly moves up to track Porro’s positioning between the lines, and because of Joelinton’s role without the ball, Tottenham can’t find Odobert’s run behind the defence, as the South American is dropping to track him.

In the second half, Spurs increased the pressure.

The introduction of Brennan Johnson on the right wing helped with that. The Wales forward’s pace and directness constantly threatened Newcastle’s back five, eventually leading to an equaliser.

GO DEEPER

Analysing Tottenham's wastefulness - including the blown chance that sums up their problems

A mixture of Johnson’s anticipation, Joelinton’s unfamiliarity with the position, his late reaction, and Nick Pope parrying Maddison’s shot all combined to put Johnson in a goalscoring position.

Pope saves his shot, but Dan Burn can’t avoid putting the ball into his own net…

In an attempt to beef up the central area and decrease the distance Joelinton had to cover when moving from his midfield role in possession to a left wing-back one if Tottenham had it, Newcastle returned to their regular shape without the ball, with the 28-year-old now in midfield…

Regardless of his position on the field and the phase of the game, Joelinton was putting in a shift: he was helping out Kelly when he was defending as a wing-back and winning duels in midfield when he was brought back next to his compatriot, Bruno Guimaraes.

Here, Guimaraes presses Udogie near the centre circle and Joelinton follows up to collect the loose ball and start the attacking transition, which later leads to Jacob Murphy getting close to scoring Newcastle’s second goal of the game if not for Guglielmo Vicario’s save.

In addition, Joelinton was still dropping into the penalty area to assist his back-four colleagues and clear any dangerous balls.

On the other hand, Newcastle’s best moment in possession all afternoon came from — you guessed it — Joelinton.

In the build-up to the winner, Joelinton starts from his left No 8 role in midfield, drops to help his team progress the ball, then returns it to Lewis Hall and signals to the left-back to pass to Burn. Newcastle’s centre-back then finds Joelinton in space, and he dribbles past Maddison…

…before playing a line-splitting pass through Tottenham’s block which puts Murphy in front of goal. The winger then unselfishly rolls the ball across goal for Alexander Isak to score into an empty net.

With Newcastle leading again and around 10 minutes of the 90 left, it was now Murphy who dropped next to Tino Livramento when they wanted to defend in a situational back five. This allowed them to use Joelinton’s ball-winning ability in midfield for the remainder of the game.

Joelinton’s performance and tactical role were reflective of Newcastle’s. Their defensive organisation limited Spurs in the first half and the intensity in midfield allowed them to win the ball on multiple occasions, but the performance lacked a sense of control and impact in possession — excluding the through ball that led to the winning goal.

“It’s so difficult to win in this league, especially if you are not at your absolute best,” Howe said. “We are finding a way to do it — that’s a great sign — but we know that longer term we are going to need to improve our performance.”

Real Betis have re-signed Giovani Lo Celso from Tottenham Hotspur on a permanent transfer.

The Argentina international, who had one year left on his contract in north London, has rejoined Betis on a four-year contract through to 2028.

After 18 months on loan at Villarreal until the summer of 2023, the 28-year-old returned to the Spurs senior squad last season and made 24 appearances in all competitions but has now rejoined the Seville-based club, whom he helped reach the Europa League knockout stages and Copa del Rey semi-final stage in the 2018-19 season.

He was the ninth arrival of the summer transfer window at Betis, following the likes of Vitor Roque (on loan from Barcelona), Diego Llorente, Marc Roca (both Leeds United) and Ricardo Rodriguez (Wolfsburg) in joining the club.

Lo Celso, who previously played for Paris Saint-Germain, joined Tottenham from Betis initially on loan in 2019 before the move was made permanent a year later.

During his time in north London, he struggled to fully establish himself as a mainstay in the Tottenham first-team and often found himself in and out of the starting line-up.

He scored 11 goals and provided eight assists in 108 appearances for the club.

The Argentine midfielder had two loan spells at Villareal between 2022 and 2023 but has now returned to La Liga permanently with Betis for who he scored 16 goals and provided six assists in 45 games during 2018-19.

GO DEEPER

Assessing Brennan Johnson's first year at Tottenham - has he been a success?

(Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

This summer, Tottenham Hotspur have signed a centre-forward (Dominic Solanke), two left-wingers (if you count Timo Werner as well as Wilson Odobert) and two very talented 18-year-old midfielders (Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall).

But there has been no new right-sided attacker. The plan was always for Brennan Johnson, who has started both of Spurs’ opening Premier League games, to begin the season as the first-choice right-winger, sharing minutes with Dejan Kulusevski.

To some Tottenham fans, this is a source of frustration. They would rather see a ready-made superstar in that role, someone who can come straight in and win games on their own. Johnson has almost become a victim of the club’s reluctance to upgrade from him. The team look well set for a second season under popular head coach Ange Postecoglou but Johnson has become a target for the grumbling of a minority.

But that view ignores the reasons the 23-year-old Wales international is so popular with Postecoglou and why he has become such an important part of his Spurs team.

Ultimately, Johnson gives Postecoglou what he wants from a winger. In the Australian’s structured positional game, he asks at least one winger to stay high and wide, stretching the play and creating space infield for a midfielder or ‘inverted’ full-back to exploit. And when the ball is on the far side of the pitch, the idea — very broadly — is for the opposite winger to attack the back post to potentially convert a low cross.

And there is no question that Johnson dutifully follows Postecoglou’s instructions to the letter.

There is much to be said for Kulusevski as a footballer but he is not especially fast, he is very left-footed, and his instincts are generally to come inside towards the ball.

Kulusevski is a brilliant technical player but often leaves you with the impression he is an individualist trying to find his way in a coordinated, synchronised world. Johnson, as well as his reliability, availability and defensive efforts, offers a clear interpretation of what their manager wants.

This became clear last season as Johnson settled in and delivered respectable numbers for his first year with Spurs. It was not easy moving from Nottingham Forest, with a big price tag, at the very end of the window when the season had already been underway for three weeks.

The plan was to be patient and ease him but early injuries to Ivan Perisic and Manor Solomon left Tottenham short in wide areas and Johnson ended up playing more than was envisioned. He started 13 straight games across all competitions between early November and late January, and by the end of that run he looked low on confidence.

It took a spell on the bench to revive Johnson’s season. He started coming on as a second-half substitute and looked far more relaxed and comfortable, running at tired full-backs and turning games in Spurs’ direction.

On January 31, he came on at half-time with Tottenham losing 1-0 at home to Brentford. But he was soon there, attacking the far post, turning in Werner’s cross and putting his team 2-1 up. They went on to win 3-2.

Ten days later, Spurs hosted Brighton, again went behind early on, and Johnson came on just after the hour. When he timed his far-post run, he met Son Heung-min’s cross to score a 96th-minute winner. It was one of the moments of the season for Tottenham. And then when they were trailing at home again, this time to Crystal Palace a few weeks later, Johnson won the ball back, burst past two defenders and drove in one of those low crosses, from which Werner equalised. Spurs went on to win, 3-1.

After that game, Postecoglou said those moves — a low cross finished off at the far post — were not happening “by accident”. This was the reward for months of hard training. And it was becoming clear how Johnson fitted into the Postecoglou plan.

The manager also praised how Johnson was “understanding better the demands of the position, which is a bit different to what he was used to”. At Forest, especially in their 2021-22 promotion season, Steve Cooper gave his countryman the freedom to attack how he wanted when they were in possession. Coming to Spurs was a different challenge.

Johnson finished with a decent haul of five goals and 10 assists. Only Son had more goal contributions for Spurs in the Premier League. You could even argue Johnson should have registered 11 assists, given that one of his classic low crosses was bundled into the net by Luton Town’s Issa Kabore on March 30, with Werner lurking just behind him, but passes turned in by defenders for own goals do not count as assists.

Only Ollie Watkins (13) and Cole Palmer (11) got more Premier League assists than Johnson last season.

You can see from these graphics how dangerous he’s been from that area near the byline.

Yet it still feels now, at the start of Johnson’s second season in north London, as if there is far more to come.

Anyone who saw him in action for Forest knows what an exciting innovative player he can be under the right conditions. And if he is to secure that place in the Spurs team for this season, Johnson will need to show the confidence that is a cause and a consequence of scoring goals. He has all the ability required to embarrass defenders but often looks reluctant to do so.

Johnson has had a few bright moments already in the opening two games.

Against Leicester, he nearly put Spurs ahead early on with a clever volley that was well saved by Mads Hermansen. Soon after, he got on the end of a James Maddison free kick and drove it straight across the face of goal, inches away from being a clever assist. And then on Saturday against Everton, it was Johnson who started the move which led to the game’s opener, driving forward down the right, into the box, and combining with Maddison and Kulusevski, who eventually set up Yves Bissouma.

Like many attacking players at this stage of a season, it feels as if an early goal or two is exactly what Johnson needs. But if he starts well and develops more of that confidence he exudes at his best, then he can progress to another level over the next nine months, not just the perfect executor of the manager’s plans but a consistent match-winner too.

Do that, and the debate about his place in the side will move on to somebody else.

GO DEEPER

Performances will always be the priority for Postecoglou

Additional reporting: Mark Carey

(Top photo: Mark Leech/Offside via Getty Images)