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Although everyone suggested a shift of power in North London, it was the Gunners who emerged victorious at the Emirates on Saturday, tactically outclassing Pochettino's much-hyped Tottenham.
Shkodran Mustafi and Alexis Sanchez bagged the goals at the Emirates, and Mesut Ozil produced one of his better performances as Arsenal made sure Tottenham remain winless at The Emirates after 2010. Let's take a look at what went wrong for Spurs in the North London Derby:
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Also read: EPL 2017/18: Arsenal vs Tottenham: 5 Talking Points
#5 Failure to counter Arsenal's pressure
While it is Pochettino who is infamous for his high-pressure style of play, the experienced Arsene Wenger successfully used the Argentine's biggest weapon against him.
Arsenal were chasing down and bullying Tottenham players from the very first minute. The high press was very obvious as Hugo Lloris and the back-three in front of him were not given a minutes peace in the first half.
The front three of Sanchez, Lacazette and somewhat surprisingly, Mesut Ozil, who does not usually showcase this kind of workrate, were constantly on the backs of the Tottenham defence, limiting their time and options on the ball and forced them to play long balls from the back which were collected more often then not by the Arsenal midfield or defence.
This led to Spurs losing possession in midfield and Arsenal keeping the ball for most of the first half. Arsenal really exploited Tottenham with their pressure and paired it with a very high defensive line which allowed them to control the flow of play, and keep the ball in the final third.
#4 Lack of chemistry in defence
Despite having the third best defensive record going into the game, the Tottenham defence looked very shaky against Arsenal.
There seemed to be a lack of understanding between the wingbacks and the outside centre-halves, as there were often gaps left between them and Arsenal exploited them throughout the first half.
Arsenal were constantly bombing through balls in between the centre-backs and the wingbacks, and successfully doing so allowed them entry into the byline numerous times in the first half.
The cutbacks from the byline were the main source of Tottenham's misery and while they dealt with it well-- blocking most of Arsenal's attempts-- they had to concede a lot of set pieces in the process. It was also one these gaps through which Alexandre Lacazette played in Alexis Sanchez for Arsenal's second goal.
The main cause of this lack of understanding between the Tottenham back-five has to be the constant rotation it's put under. Pochettino always alternates his wingbacks and was forced to change his defensive trio after Toby Alderwerield's injury.
Just like any other defence, if the Tottenham manager fails to go with a constant backline, his defence will find it very hard to gel and understand each other.
#3 Failure to defend diagonals
Another thing Tottenham failed to do was defend against the constant diagonals that Arsenal bombed against them in the first half.
Arsenal's creative midfielders, namely Ramsey, Ozil and sometimes even Lacazette, were constantly picking out Sanchez and Bellerin in space on their opposite flanks in order to quickly switch the point of play.
Arsenal drew the Tottenham pressure into one half of the pitch and this left a lot of open space for the Arsenal player sneaking through the opposite flank.
This caused the Tottenham defence to panic in order to close down the pace and creativity of Sanchez and Bellerin and led to disorganisation and lack of discipline in the final third from Tottenham's side.
It was through one of these diagonals played into Alexis Sanchez that caused Davinson Sanchez to give away the free kick through which Shkodran Mustafi produced a striker's finish to put the Gunners into the lead.
#2 Giving away set-pieces
In total, Tottenham gave away 23 set-pieces against Arsenal, including 16 free-kicks and 7 corners-- which is something you definitely don't wanna do against a side as aerially threatening as Arsenal.
While this may seem like just a lack of discipline from Tottenham's side, Arsenal didn't leave Spurs with any other option but to concede from these set-pieces. Just as explained in the previous points, Arsenal completely outclassed Tottenham on the tactical front and found holes in their system they could not fill.
With Arsenal constantly attacking through the byline, the best Tottenham could do was block the cutbacks or the shots and concede a corner. While Arsenal failed to harm from any of their seven corners, Mesut Ozil's free kick in the 36th minute connected with Shkodran Mustafi to produce Arsenal's first goal of the game.
Arsenal's pressure in the first half gave Tottenham absolutely no time on the ball and the panic it caused on the Tottenham players made it incredibly easy for Arsenal to regain possession.
This resulted in Arsenal controlling possession for most of the first-half and made Tottenham use desperate measures in order to regain possession, resulting in 5 free kicks for Arsenal in the Tottenham half.
#1 Lack of creativity in the final third
While Spurs really didn't get a chance to express themselves in the first half, they failed to respond in the second one in which Arsenal were happy to sit back and switch to a simpler counter-attacking style.
It seemed like Spurs' midfield was having a bad day at the office, as all of the creative forces combined were able to produce just 5 key passes in the whole game including one from a corner. This is very unlike Spurs as they have one of the strongest midfield lineups in the Premier League, featuring the likes of Christian Eriksen and Delle Alli.
Due to this lack of creativity, Tottenham had to take the desperate route yet again and go for wasteful shots, which are clearly represented in the graphic below, which shows that Spurs managed to put just 4 of their 14 shots on target.
Even though Arsenal also have a similar shots-on-target to total shots ratio, they have an excuse as many of their shots were blocked and they managed to score from both of their first two shots on target.
