Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham boss Robert Vilahamn talks to BBC Sport: “It’s hard to score an early goal like that again. It’s mentally tough, especially when you come in with a game plan. The first half wasn’t good for us, we tried to find a way to stop them but they are very good.

“The second half was much better. We tried to get higher up the pitch, we pressed better, had more possession, but at the other end Arsenal scored another goal and secured the win.

Frustrated? “It’s not nice to lose. Today we wanted to play for them in front of the fans and win for them. Today we disappointed them, so it’s hard to be anything other than disappointed.”

On poor defensive record: “We had a game plan today to try and get a different shape but it didn’t work. We’ve had a few tough games in a row and we’ve lost confidence. It’s destroyed some of the self-confidence in the way we played with things turned around.”

“Let’s go to the next set of games and try to improve and then we’ll see if it’s a big problem or if we can solve it. We can press, we can defend well, it’s more having those games on row and that has made the confidence too low. We have to find a way to get that back.”

Still a gap to the top? “Everyone knows there is a big divide. The top teams win all the time and often by large margins. The problem is that it takes time to close that gap.

“Last year we started that journey and this year we had a bad run, but we’re going to try to rebuild it. It won’t kill us, but it’s hard to lose games now. We don’t have to to lie.” We are not ahead of the top three teams.”