Tottenham v Arsenal: north London derby, Premier League – live | Premier League

45+3 min Two Spurs bookings for the price of one. Jarred Gillett played the advantage when Van de Ven wiped out Trossard, then booked Kulusevski for fouling Jorginho. Spurs are complaining but, while it’s all a bit ugly, they both looked fair enough by modern standards.

45+1 min: Chance for Johnson! Kulusevski wins the ball 25 yards from goal, rumbles forward and plays the ball to his right for Johnson. He has to take the shot first time, which is slightly awkward as it rolls across his body, and he slashes it over the bar. Still a pretty good chance.

45 min Three minutes of added time.

44 min Spurs break really well, giving Arsenal a taste of their own. Eventually Johnson runs into the area and drives a low shot that deflects behind off Timber. Good defending.

43 min “As Frank Zappa put it in one of his lyrics: ‘I figure the odds be 50-50 that the game ends with 22 men on the field’,” writes Charles Antaki. “I may have imagined the second clause, but Frank was a clever chap and I wouldn’t have put it past him to predict events in derby game 35 years down the line.”

This recent spurt of yellow cards is interesting. Anthony Taylor got a lot of stick for last night’s record-breaking game at Bournemouth, but ultimately the problem stems from a culture in which players try to cheat literally thousands of times in every game. It’s far too easy to blame the referees, especially when the law gives them no choice.

41 min Saka again declines to swing a corner under the crossbar. Very strange. It almost pays off when Martinelli wriggles away from two defenders, but Udogie comes across to challenge.

38 min Vicario is booked for instigating a row with Timber. Not sure how that works – isn’t VAR only for red cards – but anyway.

I can see why Timber’s yellow card wasn’t upgraded, as there wasn’t that much force as his foot slipped off the ball and into Porro’s achilles. In previous seasons he might have been sent off.

37 min Timber’s tackle wasn’t great: he put his studs on the ball, which then plunged into Porro’s leg. We have seen players sent off for things like that, though on this occasion the yellow card has been upheld.

36 min Timber fouled Porro, for which he was booked, and then half the players got involved in a shoving match. VAR are checking to see whether anyone raised their hands.

35 min: It’s kickng off!

35 min For reasons best known to himself, Saka takes a short corner that is cut out. No idea why he didn’t waft it under the crossbar to test Vicario.

34 min Timber again makes a good run into the area, this time to win a corner. Martinelli’s inswinger scrapes the fist of Vicario, flailing more in hope than expectation, and goes behind for another on the far side.

32 min Bentancur is booked for a common-or-garden foul on Havertz. “Once you start giving yellow cards for that,” says Gary Neville, “you cause yourself problems – especially with this atmosphere.”

32 min Now Spurs are having a decent spell. There are a few grumbles when Timber wrestles Johnson away from a cross from the left, but there wasn’t enough for a penalty.

31 min “The pass to Saka seemed pretty obvious,” says Sean Orlowicz. “How does a professional not look up and realize they have a two on none? I fear he is purely average with elite speed. Hope Arsenal can sell him for £40m before everyone realises how limited he is.”

It always looks obvious on TV, no? I reckon maybe 7/10 elite players in Martinelli’s position would have had a shot.

29 min: Solanke goes close Maddison, on the left edge of the area, floats a cross towards the far post, where Solanke does brilliantly to muscle Gabriel aside and loops a header back across goal. Raya scrambles to his right, fearing the worst, and the ball swerves just wide. That was a really good effort because there was no pace on the cross.

28 min “Here’s my question(s),” says Joe Pearson. “If Arsenal’s home kit had too much white in the jersey to be used, doesn’t the away kit have too much black in the shorts? Or is the jersey the only thing that matters? This is all quite silly.”

27 min Udogie is booked for a foul, I think on Saka. The pace is breathless and it’s hard to keep up.

24 min “Am I seeing things, did Romero not wilfully handle that Havertz header on the goal line?” says Alex Whitney. “Commentators didn’t even mention it, but from two replays looked the case to me.”

It definitely hit his arm but I’ll be amazed if it was deliberate.

23 min Arsenal are starting to create chances. A corner is half cleared to Trossard, who whistles a shot from 20 yards that is blocked. Moments later, Havertz’s looping header is saved fairly comfortably by Vicario.

22 min Raya drops a high ball under pressure from Solanke, who is penalised. Interesting. I think it was a foul, albeit soft. Raya almost dropped the ball into his own net. “It was hardly Nat Lofthouse,” says Peter Drury on Sky.

20 min It’s a fascinating game, and the last few minutes will give Arsenal plenty of encouragement that their rope-a-dope tactics are going to pay off.

19 min: Chance for Martinelli! An even better chance for Arsenal. Martinelli gets away from Porro again, this time to run through on goal. Van de Ven comes across so he takes the shot early from about 15 yards. It’s a tame curling effort, way too close to Vicario.

In hindsight – easy to say, I know – he should have tried to find Saka on the far side.

18 min: Chance for Havertz! Martinelli roasts Porro and stands up an excellent cross to the far post. Havertz powers a header back across goal that is clawed away superbly by Vicario, who had to change direction and dive to his right. He pushed the ball against the arm of Romero, who about a yard away. Arsenal appealed for a penalty but VAR quickly checkcompleted it.

17 min Trossard feeds a good pass into Timber in the area. He cuts away from a defender and cracks a low shot that is well blocked by Romero.

15 min Saliba is booked for delaying a restart. When a foul was giving to Spurs, he picked the ball up and ran a few yards with it. File under LOTL, although Arsenal’s coaching staff look entirely unimpressed.

15 min: Chance for Solanke! Spurs win the ball high up the field, with the ball ricocheting square to Solanke on the edge of the area. He takes too long to get the ball out of his feet and Saliba dispossesses him. Ideally that would have been a touch and hit.

14 min As Gary Neville observes on Sky Sports, Arsenal are taking their time whenever the ball goes dead, trying to draw some of the sting from the game. They have been less uncomfortable in the last five minutes or so.

12 min Passing accuracy so far: Spurs 92 per cent, Arsenal 67. Has Mikel Arteta taken Arsenal as far as he can?

11 min It’s not his best free-kick and Saliba (I think) clears.

10 min Son is fouled by White on the left wing. Maddison will take the free-kick…

8 min Now Kulusevski has a shot desperately blocked. Spurs are all over Arsenal like a cheap cliche.

7 min Kulusevski’s corner is half cleared and given back to him on the right. He curls a wicked inswinging cross that beats everyone at the near post, bounces awkwardly and is clawed away by Raya, diving to his right. He did really well because he couldn’t react until the ball had gone past everyone in the middle.

6 min Spurs are really dominating the ball. Although we know Arsenal can play exhilarating football, this already has a feeling of romance versus pragmatism.

5 min: Good save by Raya! Solanke combines nicely with Son on the left. Son’s cutback is met first time by Kulusevski, whose shot is pushed round the near post by Raya. Pretty good save and a lovely move.

3 min Spurs are starting to get on the ball, as is their wont. It looks Arsenal are playing with a box midfield, certainly without the ball: Partey and Jorginho, Havertz and Trossard.

2 min Saka’s corner is cleared. As you probably remember, Arsenal scored twice from set pieces on this ground last season.

1 min Peep peep! Arsenal kick off from left to right and we watch, and win a corner after 20 seconds.

It’s kicking off!

“I’ve been a Spurs fan for over fifty years,” writes Jim Denvir, “ever since Pat Jennings came to visit my primary school soon after I started there in the mid seventies. My dad didn’t like football and hated crowds but gamely took me to a few matches when I was a kid. Probably the most memorable was a 3-0 win over Ajax in the Uefa Cup which included a sumptuous goal from Ossie.

”I moved to America nearly 30 years ago. I’ve finally reached a point in my career where I travel frequently enough back to England and am fortunate enough to pay for membership, so I do now get to go to a couple of games each season. My wife was invited to present at a conference in Italy and we’d already decided to come to London and catch up with friends and family this weekend. This was all arranged before this season’s fixture list was announced but here we are.

”The atmosphere here is incredible. Yes, football has become commercialised and sanitised, and much of that is good though some of it is bad. But there is still nothing to beat this feeling of tribalism and the sense that anything could happen in the next 90 minutes. When ‘Oh when the Spurs’ broke out at the bar in the south stand an hour before kick off, I genuinely had goosebumps. Just minutes to kickoff now. COYS.”

Here come the teams, with Arsenal wearing their black away kit. The atmosphere is spectacular.

A reminder of the teams

Tottenham Hotspur (4-1-2-3) Vicario; Porro, Romero, van de Ven, Udogie; Bentancur; Kulusevski, Maddison; Johnson, Solanke, Son.
Subs: Forster, Dragusin, Gray, Bergvall, Werner, Spence, Odobert, Sarr, Davies.

Arsenal (possible 4-1-2-3) Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber; Jorginho;
Partey, Trossard; Saka, Havertz, Martinelli.
Subs: Neto, Gabriel Jesus, Kiwior, Sterling, Lewis-Skelly, Nwaneri, Kacurri,
Kabia, Heaven.

Referee Jarred Gillett.

From the archive

No Declan Rice = no problem for Arsenal, at least when the ball is dead.

“Mikel Arteta seemed blessed with the ability to use key players throughout last season, enabling them to get closer to old ‘two-full-first-teams’ in sky blue,” says Bill Hargreaves. “Today will be a test. I still can’t say Tottenham without putting an ‘ing’ in the middle as dear old Ossie used to.”

This game does feel particularly hard to call, even more so with that ultra-attacking Spurs XI. But I’m paid the small bucks to stick my neck out, so I’m telling you now: the result will be between 5-0 and 0-5.

Big Ange: not for turning

This is a charming interview with Bukayo Saka.

Some weeks are bigger than others. In the next eight days Arsenal will play away to Spurs, Atalanta and the Erling Haaland team.

This is an excellent point from David Howell

“The other thing, with this being only September, is that we don’t know yet whether this title race is a normal one, or one where lawyers and assorted other professional interpreters of accountancy Numberwang will forcibly remove Manchester City from the equation.

“All the other teams are jostling for position in a peloton that may or may not have a sky blue breakaway to chase down. This is Schrödinger’s Table until that particular case is closed; there is indeed a huge day in the title race this week, but it’s not today. It’s tomorrow.”

Jonathan Liew sticks his thermometer up North London

I’m the only Spurs in here,” calls the landlady, a jolly woman of middle years called Tina. As you can imagine, running a Spurs pub on derby day is not a job for the meek. The Coach & Horses will be packed to overfilling, security hired to keep order, as well as to enforce the rule on no visiting fans.

But what about the rest of the time? What if an Arsenal fan – known pejoratively in these parts as a “Gooner” – were to stray over the threshold? Would they simply be turfed out? Or would a more exemplary punishment be demanded? “Oh, that rule’s just for match days,” Tina explains. “We get Arsenal fans in here all the time. There’s one over there. She’s my daughter.

The final score is Tottenham Hotspur 9-1 Arsenal. Sort of.

Team news: Van de Ven and Solanke return, Trossard starts

David Hytner meets Pedro Porro

Since I was small, I have had to fight for everything. You had to be tough in my house. Often there wasn’t any food. I know others have that situation, too, but that is how it was. That is why I have had to be tough. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, this spirit. It’s a winning spirit, as well. It can be positive within the game. It’s been part of me since I started. If you want to reach the absolute top level, you have to be strong mentally.

Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea and now Arsenal. Raheem Sterling has had a career less ordinary.

Preamble