Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal: Gunners won ‘like a Mourinho team’

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Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal: Gunners won ‘like a Mourinho team’

While Arsenal were still solid without Rice at the heart of their midfield, they did miss Odegaard’s creative nous and calmness on the ball.

“It’s hard to compare him and Trossard, because they are very different players,” Walcott explained.

“Trossard, for me, is probably the best finisher at the club – but Odegaard is the conductor, the one who gets everything working and gets everyone in the team working at their best level. He even starts the defensive press.

“Ethan Nwaneri, who came on late in the second half, has some similarities as a player but at 17 he is still very young and still developing and learning.

“In time he could be the one who takes Odegaard’s role when he is not available but, whoever comes in, it is going to be hard to replace him.

“At the moment I feel like they have to play differently when he is not in the team, but we saw on Sunday that it can work.”

It certainly helps that Arsenal always pose such a threat from set-pieces, which have brought them more goals (23) than any other Premier League team since the start of last season.

“Again, that’s why these coaches have been brought into these clubs,” Walcott said. “But the key is the time they spend on these situations, every single day.

“When I was playing it was just the day before the game when you would work on set-pieces, but Arsenal do it all week. When I watched them in pre-season, they were even doing it then. They are so important, they started this process in the summer, rather than just getting the players fit.

“Their thinking is that this is where the difference will be in certain games and when you have players of the stature of Gabriel and Saliba, then of course you want to use them. It was the same with Mourinho’s teams too – Terry would always pose a huge threat.

“You hear strikers like Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney talk about the time they spent focusing on their finishing every day after training, so it became like second nature to them. That kind repetition works with practicing set-pieces too, and this is Arsenal’s reward.”

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