‘Painful’ and ‘no fight’ – Spurs sorry for derby display

Following Sunday’s unfortunate performance against Arsenal in the north London derby, Tottenham manager Thomas Frank and goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario apologised to the media.

Eberechi Eze scored a hat-trick against the club he almost joined in the summer, losing to Spurs 4-1 at Emirates Stadium, which was their joint-heaviest Premier League defeat by the Gunners.

The visitors’ expected-goals (xG) rating of 0.07 was the lowest in the top flight this season, but Richarlison responded with a sensational 40-yard effort.

Frank, whose side has now lost three of their last five league games, told Sky Sports, “I won’t walk away from that.” We only have the right to apologize to the fans for that performance.

With goals from Leandro Trossard and Eze, Arsenal deservedly led 2-0 after the break when they repeatedly cut through Spurs in the second half through Frank’s use of a back three in place of the leaders.

Eze scored the third goal 35 seconds into the second half before scoring 14 minutes into the final whistle for the Dane at the break.

“Frankly said, “I will always accept responsibility for my choice. It’s difficult to win a football game because, in my opinion, no matter what formation we played, we didn’t have enough duels or intensity in the decisive moments.

Vicario said, “We have to apologise to the people who support us every day,” in line with his manager. They had told us to fight, but we didn’t today. At this point, that is not in dispute.

Tottenham has struggled to threaten the opposition in the final third of the season before this.

Spurs only managed three attempts in the 1-0 home defeat suffered by Chelsea earlier this month, which was the second-lowest total in the Premier League this season.

Their xG of 0 / 17 in the 1-0 victory over Bournemouth in August was only marginally better.

As Frank’s side travels to Champions League titleholder Paris St-Germain on Wednesday, “it has been an ongoing theme that we are working hard to improve,” he added. “It doesn’t look good today, or against Chelsea,” he said.

We played against our biggest rivals, and we suffered a blow, but we’ll keep the noise at bay and concentrate.