Premier League: Spurs dent Arsenal title chances – Highlights

Resham Ahmed April 21, 2011 0

Premier League: Spurs dent Arsenal title chances – Highlights

LONDON: Tottenham Hotspur dented severely to the Arsenal chances of challenging chart leader Manchester United as they drew with Gunners by 3-3 in their Premier League outing on Wednesday night.

Samir Nasri, Theo Walcott, Robin van Persie. Courtesy: AP PHOTO

By playing draw against Spurs, Arsene Wenger’s side also lost its second place on points table as defending champions Chelsea replaced them. Arsenal were looked good in the match but they failed to maintain their lead, just like the case in the match against Liverpool last when they had to settle for draw due to injury time goal from Dirk Kuyt.

Theo Walcott scored the opening goal for Arsenal only in the fourth minute of the match but Van der Vaart pulled it back immediately in the sixth minute. Samir Nasri scored the second goal of Arsenal and gave them lead again which was further extended by their star striker Robin van Persie with third goal of Arsenal in the 40^th minute.

Arsenal players celebrate. Courtesy: AP PHOTO

Huddlestone scored the second goal of Spurs in the 43^rd minute of the match as Arsenal finished the first half one goal lead over Spurs. Arsenal skipper Cesc Febregas criticized his teammates for lacking the killer instinct before the start of the match and this is exactly happened in the second half as Arsenal players were relaxed and Spurs took full advantage and Van der Vaart scored his second goal and Spurs’ third goal of the match in the 70^th minute on penalty.

Rafael Van der Vaart. Courtesy: GETTY IMAGES

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was positive about his team chances for Premier League title and said, “It’s not over…we’ll fight. In the second half we dropped physically because we had a difficult game on Sunday (at home to Liverpool). We’ve had two games in three days; our recovery was a bit short. We suffered physically in the second half and were very unfortunate to concede the penalty.”

Rafael van der Vaart. Courtesy: AFP PHOTO

Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp was happy on his team performance and said, “It was one of the great games…a real classic. We showed fantastic character to come from 3-1 down. Arsenal were top class in the first half, they had us at full stretch and were hard to live with. But in the second half the best chances were going our way, we just couldn’t get the winner. We came back from an almost impossible position and had chances to win it.”