Eberechi Eze didn’t just play a north London derby he re-wrote what an Arsenal No 10 is supposed to look like.
From the first whistle you could see it: Spurs dropped into a deep block, went long, tried to chew up minutes and drag the whole thing into a scrap.
Arsenal needed someone who could float above the chaos and Eze basically went and found his own private pitch, half a step off the ground.
The opener comes from proper football: Merino splitting the lines, Trossard spinning and finishing. Then Eze takes over.
First goal: he pops up in that classic zone between the lines, quick set, quick shot, no backlift, keeper beaten before he can even plant his feet. Second: 36 seconds after half-time, same glide, same control, rolled into the corner like he’s passing in training.
Richarlison lashes in an outrageous one from distance to make it 3 – 1, and for about 30 seconds you wonder if the script is turning.
Then comes that third. Udogie slips trying to match Eze’s change of tempo, and suddenly Eze is just standing there in his own bubble, ball at his feet, derby on pause. One more ice-cold finish, hat-trick, 4 – 1, Emirates absolutely shaking.
Tactically, this is exactly why Arteta wanted him so badly. When teams try to drag Arsenal into a fight, Eze gives them lightness: he receives on the half-turn, never rushed, always between Spurs’ clunky units, forcing their midfield to choose between stepping out and getting popped around, or sitting and being sliced through.
It’s high-level structure plus pure street-ball flair cage football dropped into a title race.
And it all fits the evolution we’ve seen under Arteta: the George Graham steel welded onto a modern, positional blueprint – that same “control of the chaos” we broke down in One-Nil to the New Arsenal: Arteta’s Gunners vs Simeone’s Street-Fighters.
Arsenal can win 1 – 0 by locking the box, or, when someone like Eze is in this kind of mood, they can rip you apart without ever losing that defensive platform.
By the final whistle Arsenal are six points clear at the top, Spurs look like a team from another era, and Eze walks off with the match ball, just the latest name in derby folklore.
If you love football, this is one of those performances you remember where you were for. Not just numbers on a scoreboard a player in full flow, in a derby, in a title charge, making the game look lighter for him than it does for everyone else. That is superstar stuff.
