Arsenal confirmed their Premier League title bona fides with a 4-1 thumping of North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur this morning AEDT despite missing defender Gabriel.
Eberechi Eze scored a hat-trick for the Gunners, earning player of the match honours in what was easily his best performance since signing from Crystal Palace.
Spurs were blown away in a 15-minute period either side of half-time, with Leandro Trossard and Eze scoring shortly before the break, and Eze making it 3-0 a minute into the second half.
“That is crazy. Special day, man. Special day for me, my family,” Eze told BBC Match of the Day.
“I don’t think I could have ever dreamed of it. This is more special than that. I can only thank God.
“We were prepared for whatever set-up they were coming with because of the diligence of our staff. Huge credit to them, and of course the players in our team – the ability, the talent. From whatever angle, we’re threatening to score goals.
“I probably should have scored four. I’m always trying to score, always trying to take my chances. It’s important to be relentless.”
His boss Mikel Arteta said: “That’s him. He had two days off after the England camp and after day one he wanted to train.
“He wanted to come back and improve and ask questions. When you have such a talent and such intelligence and then you add that willingness to be better and practise, these things happen.
“When I spoke to Thomas Tuchel [about Eze] I said ‘how good is he?’ He said to me ‘one of the best I have seen’. I rate him one of the best in terms of talent. If we add in now his work-rate, willingness to play for this team and the joy I sense when he is in the building we have a special player.”
Premier League legend Jamie Carragher said on Sky Sports that Eze’s arrival at the Emirates this season could be the catalyst for the Gunners ending their title drought.
“When Eze came in, I thought, okay, maybe it’s not a game changer,” he mused on Sky Sports’ coverage in the UK.
“And Les [Ferdinand] knows him a lot better than me. He still said earlier on the show, there’s still more to come. But then we still seen some of his highlights this season.
“There were still a few great goals in there, and then he goes and scores a hat-trick. So apologies.
“I certainly undervalued the importance of that signing because he looks like he could make the real difference for Arsenal this season and going on to win the title.
“And apart from the sort of skill he’s scoring the goals and his overall contribution to the game.”
Tottenham pulled one back through Richarlison 10 minutes later, but that was a false dawn as Eze put the icing on the cake in the 76th minute, taking Arsenal to a six-point lead at the top of the Premier League ladder.
“I enjoyed every minute of it – the preparation since they came back from the international break, the energy that I felt, the hunger to play the game, the enthusiasm, the joy,” Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta said.
“And when you play in the manner we played and to win with the goals we scored against our rivals always makes it a special day.
“We want to impose ourselves in every department, but it start with the intensity, with the duels, being very precise because the space is limited, there’s a lot of aggression. They’re a really good team and we have to earn it.
“From the beginning, we were really strong, really intense and we had to be patient. But we looked dominant, and scored two goals in the first half.
“In the second half, we maintained the consistency and even though there are things to improve, overall it was a great performance.”
Arsenal travel to Stamford Bridge next weekend to play second placed Chelsea. After years of near misses, Arsenal icon Thierry Henry said on Sky Sports that it is time to embrace the favouritism.
“At some point, you have to embrace it. People are talking about the process,” Henry said.
“It’s not believing in the process anymore. It’s happening. You have to be honest.
“We put ourselves in the situation where we believe we have the best squad.
“Did we mention the players that were not playing? Look at how we played. You’re not complaining anymore about one or two.
“So you need to make sure that you can win the league. I’m not saying they are going to win it but you need to act like you are the favourite.
“Embrace it. It’s not me trying to put pressure. If I were coming back in the summer, I would have said, ‘It’s time to stop messing around’.
“We now need a performance this year where people are scared of us. It’s not being cocky.”
For Tottenham, it was a chastening evening. Their expected goals of 0.07 was the lowest in the league this season, while Thomas Frank’s decision to move to a back three also backfired.
“It’s extremely painful – I won’t walk away from that,” Frank told Sky Sports. “We can only apologise to the fans for that performance.
“It was a bad performance. I’ve seen a lot of character and fight in this team, but we didn’t win enough duels.”
In this morning’s other game, Morgan Rogers scored a double to help Aston Villa beat Leeds 2-1, taking Villa up to fourth place on the ladder, a pretty remarkable effort given they were winless after five games this season.