Despite going down to ten men following Radu Dragusin’s first-half sending-off, Ange Postecoglou’s side did not waver from their customary attacking style.
Four minutes after the dismissal, Brennan Johnson gave Spurs the lead before second-half strikes from Pape Matar Sarr and Dominic Solanke saw them ease to a comfortable win on their return to European football.
The tactics starkly contrasted with Premier League rivals Arsenal who adopted a very conservative approach when put in a similar position after Leandro Trossard was sent off in last weekend’s top-of-the-table clash with Manchester City.
Holding a 2-1 lead at the break, the Gunners spent much of the second half with ten men behind the ball before ultimately succumbing to John Stones’ late equaliser.
Following the draw, Mikel Arteta’s set-up came under the microscope, with pundit Roy Keane, in particular, slamming the Spaniard’s ‘dinosaur’ tactics.
And Tottenham were clearly keen to poke the bear one more time, posting a graphic of the match stats from their Europa League win with the caption: ’10 men and we never stopped playing our football.’
While Arteta’s tactics were criticised by some, the Spaniard was keen to defend his decision-making, citing a 5-0 defeat against City two years ago as a factor that motivated Arsenal’s safety first gameplan.
‘We had to play the game that we had to play,’ he said earlier in the week. ‘In the first 10 or 15 minutes we couldn’t. 11 against 11, then we got much better and obviously were thrown into a very different context. Every team does.
‘They played 30 seconds with 10 men. Look at what they did, it’s normal what they did for 30 seconds. We had to do it in a different way.
‘We learned from the past as well because unfortunately, we’ve been in that situation three times.
‘One was with Granit [Xhaka] after 37, 38 minutes and we conceded how many?’ We lost 5-0. We’d better learn. If not I would be very thick.’
Arsenal will look to get back to winning ways in the league on Saturday at home against Leicester, while Tottenham face a trip to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United on Sunday.
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