Theo Walcott is right – Arsenal's crucial win over Spurs was inspired by their former tormentor

Remember Arsenal back in the 1990s, before Arsène Wenger took charge and modernised the club? “Boring, boring Arsenal”, George Graham’s grey 1-0 merchants that partied hard off the pitch and stultified their opponents on it. They were defence first, system first, and largely effective but never all that much fun to watch. The way that Arsenal ground out the result against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday felt just a little familiar, at least apart from all the alcohol. Presumably.

Theo Walcott’s verdict on his former team’s performance on the BBC harked back to another, more recent era when results were placed ahead of entertainment – that of José Mourinho, whose football never provided much theatre even if his interviews did but who left England bent double under the weight of all his trophies anyway.

“It must have felt like they were trying to play their way through a brick wall in the second half because,” Walcott said. “Whatever they tried, Gabriel and William Saliba were ready to clear it away. It was like watching Mourinho's Chelsea side, and I used to hate playing against them.

“They were so well structured… It would not look pretty, but they would just get results and would then end up winning the league. As a forward playing against them, it felt like there was only so much you could do… When everything you try has been denied, denied and denied again then, as a team, you start thinking 'we are never going to score today'."

Of course, Arsenal are more than capable of playing entertaining football, as Mourinho’s sides were too. Even George Graham had Ian Wright. But this was a performance which shrugged off any thoughts of free-flowing football and focused on system and discipline. It was dour, joyless, and times rather tedious. And it worked like a dream.

If you want to know how defensive Arsenal were, look at an average position chart for their players. Thomas Partey wasn’t a midfielder but a centre-half, and actually ended up playing deeper than Wiliam Saliba and Gabriel Magalhães over the course of the match. Leandro Trossard was sat so far back that he was practically on top of Jorginho. Arteta played 5-4-1, more or less, and worked to sap the life out of Ange Postecoglou’s more free-wheeling side, giving the hosts’ seemingly attacking midfield nowhere to go and nobody to pass to. It worked like a dream.

Spurs had much more possession and many more shots on goal, but a third of their attempts were frustrated long-rangers in the closing minutes and they created little of actual note. They simply couldn’t penetrate an Arsenal side that sat back, worked hard, and denied any meaningful amount of space and time to their opposite numbers. Only Dominic Solanke had anything resembling a real chance, and his back-post header drifted wide when he was simply out-muscled in the air by Gabriel. Postecoglou’s side wanted to play the beautiful game but Arsenal were there for an arm wrestle, and they won.

This isn’t the side of Arteta’s Gunners side that many fans think of first, but it’s becoming a critical part of their identity – play ugly when required and win though set pieces. It’s a bit like a luxury version of a Sam Allardyce or Sean Dyche team, and currently rather more effective than anything the latter is putting together.

They don’t do it every week, but while Arteta may be increasingly noted for his oddball theories and flights of fancy (hiring pickpockets to steal from his players at a meal, that sort of thing) he is plainly pragmatic when he feels that he has to be. In the head-to-heads against Manchester City last year for instance, Arteta ground out a 0-0 and 1-0 and made it dull and rigid and simple in order to earn some absolutely critical points.

Now, in a derby game with both Martin Ødegaard and Declan Rice unavailable, he clearly decided it was time to go a little bit Mourinho again. Perhaps any wounded Spurs fans looking for reasons to be cheerful on Monday could console themselves with the idea that playing such a defensive style represented a mark of respect.

Of course, given how poorly Mourinho’s ideals worked out at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, there’s a certain grim irony to the comparison. But Mourinho was a fading force when he took over and appeared to fall out with several players. Arteta may be willing to adopt the same methodologies when it suits, but he has always worked hard to keep his players on side, too, and they seem to respond well to him, at least once they’ve got their stuff back from the pickpockets. Mourinho’s failing was that he usually left a dressing room in disarray. Arteta seems to be able to avoid making the same mistake. Take the best of one of football’s most successful managers, and leave the worst. Makes sense.

Walcott also discussed watching Arsenal pouring time and coaching resources into set pieces during the summer training camp, and that’s now worth another three points this season – and it was worth quite a few last year, given that Arsenal scored more goals from dead ball situations (30 including 10 penalties) than any other team in the Premier League across the 2023/24 campaign.

"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,” Walcott added. “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.”

And that’s Arteta – detail-oriented and determined to find every last percentage point, unafraid to go where managers like Mourinho often went and suck the life out of a match when required to win, happy to win ugly when seemingly required and perhaps just a little bit too intense as a person for most peoples’ comfort. It’s made Arsenal a much stronger side and Arteta a much stronger manager, and probably results in a team that’s much more likely to win a title. The only question, for all the added mental toughness and tactical discipline and set piece work, is whether they’re good enough to win a title against Manchester City.