Spurs 3-0 Arsenal: The correct decisions Arteta made

In any defeat, especially a 3-0 humbling away from home against your fiercest rivals, fingers will be frantically pointed in the direction of near enough everyone. Who was to blame for Arsenal?

The blame game won’t get anyone anywhere. As soul destroying as it is to lose this heavily against Tottenham, while there are areas to pick apart and critique, the scoreline won’t change and moving on to the next training session immediately is key.

Look, did Mikel Arteta make a mistake in fielding Cedric Soares at right-back to handle the threat of Heung-min Son, especially since Gabriel Martinelli was keeping Dejan Kulusevski pinned back quite far with his width? Probably.

Even if Arsenal have ten men they were more comfortable with Tomiyasu on the right, whether a back three or five.

Spurs 3-0 Arsenal: The correct decisions Arteta made were to not bring on Benjamin White and take Nketiah and Martinelli off early

But when Harry Kane grabbed his brace a matter of seconds after Rob Holding stupidly got himself sent off, it was game over. Arsenal’s record of four points won from losing positions is the lowest in the league this season, while Tottenham’s tally of just one defeat from the 23 occasions they’ve been leading is behind only the top two in the table.

Factoring all that in, away from home, with a skeleton squad and being a man down makes the task harder than scaling Everest with a toothpick. One must never fully concede, but the game was done.

Immediately Arteta appeared to signal for Benjamin White to ready himself. Then Spurs grabbed their second. White sat back down.

Eager to be part of the group despite not having a training session, when Kane’s second effectively ended the contest Arteta made the right call in keeping White well away. It would have been careless to bring him into the fold and risk him aggravating his injury, especially given Holding will miss Monday’s game and nothing other than victory will suffice over the following two fixtures.

He stayed seated in what became a game of damage limitation.

"“To take the risk [of playing White] in the situation that the game was didn’t make any sense,” Arteta said. “Now focus on Newcastle. This game is history.”"

As tough to swallow as it may be, Arteta was right not to take risks in this game that could impact their chances against Newcastle in the Premier League on Monday. Hold your chin up, take the defeat, and don’t hamper yourself further in a game where the change may only have given you a 5% great chance of getting a result. The pros did not outweigh the cons.

By this point it was also important to take off key players. Eddie Nketiah had a tough evening but never stopped running, while Gabriel Martinelli looked like the player on the pitch most likely to create for Arsenal. They needed saving.

Both were engaged even if their markers were physical throughout, thus taking the pair off early, especially Nketiah who has barely played this season, was the wise move.

Dust down, refocus, and go again. But doing so with as many fit players as you can would obviously be preferable.