The Regista - Tottenham vs Arsenal tactical review: Arteta spied shaky Vicario; Gunners' physical power the difference

Tribalfootball.com's tactics expert Connor Holden reviews Arsenal's victory at Tottenham in Sunday's North London Derby and highlights the mental and physical transformation the visitors have undergone this past year.

The North London Derby once again didn't disappoint, producing five goals, some tense VAR decisions and a late surge almost stopping Arsenal in their title chasing tracks.

Despite the scoreline ending 3-2 (appearing a close call for Mikel Arteta's side) Arsenal displayed a high level of maturity in this game, managing the match impressively at times. The Gunners were defensively well-drilled (as is becoming a theme) and ensured they remained calm and together during intervals, with many individuals showing their willingness to step up and be leaders on the day.

ARSENAL'S DEFENSIVE STRUCTURE

In this game, Arsenal flexed their out of possession (OOP) muscles, fluctuating between their 4-4-2 (Hexagon trap) press, and their 4-1-2-1-2 diamond press, both of which stunted Spurs in different ways.

In this 4-4-2 shape, the two wide men (Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard) would come narrow, the idea behind this narrow hexagon shape was to stop central progression, and force Tottenham down the flanks.

This saw Tottenham try a few different things such as James Maddison dropping deeper to try and overload from within the “hexagon trap" as I'm labelling it. However this still brought them to the same conclusions, shoehorning out wide and being forced down the flanks.

Maddison would also try to stay behind the double pivot in this hexagon shape (Declan Rice + Thomas Partey) hoping one of his teammates could find an intricate pass through the narrow lines into him in space. However this is where one of the