Arsenal 4-1 Tottenham: Thomas Frank apologises to fans as Guglielmo Vicario admits Spurs showed no fight

Tottenham boss Thomas Frank has apologised to fans for their dismal 4-1 defeat at Arsenal, as Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario admitted they showed no fight against their north London rivals.

Spurs' wretched loss saw them produce the lowest expected goals by any team in a Premier League match so far this season, with their 0.07 xG surpassing their previous record-low of 0.12 xG registered in their 1-0 home defeat to Chelsea at the start of November.

Just 22 days on, Spurs slumped to another abysmal defeat as they slipped to ninth in the table, having won just three of their last 11 games in all competitions.

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The meek defeat at the home of their local rivals was labelled "embarrassing" by ex-Spurs striker Les Ferdinand, forcing Frank to say sorry to the club's fans.

The Dane told Sky Sports: "It's extremely painful. It was a bad performance and completely the opposite of what the intention was before we came here.

"We can only apologise to the fans for this performance.

"No matter if the team went to play a bit short, they got on top of that, and we couldn't get out.

"They were stronger in the duels and we couldn't get out of those duels. When it went long, with the duels and second balls, we didn't win enough of those.

"On the day, a bad performance that we lost.

"I've seen a lot of fight and character in this team [in the past] but one big thing we didn't do well enough was winning the duels.

"We can call that whatever we want to call it, but we didn't win enough duels."

He added in his post-match press conference: "It's fair to say that we are very disappointed and unhappy with the performance today. I don't want to run away from that.

"As I said, I apologise to the fans. I think it's also fair to say where we're coming from - we finished 17th last year, and we're trying to build something, which today didn't look like we tried to build something."

Vicario: We didn't fight

Spurs suffered a fourth successive defeat against Arsenal, with the Gunners' 4-1 win their joint-biggest Premier League victory over them.

Vicario, a member of Tottenham's leadership group under Frank, also apologised to fans and criticised the team's fight in the loss as they now turn their attentions to another tough task, as they visit Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday.

"It was a very bad night for us," the Italian told Sky Sports. "First of all, we have to apologise to the people that support us and travel, to expect to watch a fight because as a collective, we didn't fight.

"That's not negotiable to compete in a football match, especially at this level.

"But now is a tough night, it's a very bad defeat, but we have to stick together because we know what we have to address.

"We have another big night on Wednesday. We have to stick together and believe in ourselves because tonight we didn't show anything that we're normally capable of.

"I know the emotions are high when you lose a derby like that, but we need to have cool heads."

Ferdinand agreed with Vicario over the lack of grit shown in the defeat.

He said: "It wasn't a five-star performance from Arsenal. The scoreline was five-star, but there was no fight. Arsenal didn't get out of third gear.

"You expect a little bit of spark. Arsenal have got three players who haven't played in a north London derby before. Tottenham probably had one. But there was nothing.

"At the start of the week, I was thinking about this game. Nothing the players did out there felt like a north London derby."

Frank's tactics in spotlight

Frank opted to play a 5-4-1 system at Arsenal, but it backfired as the home side dominated the first half, scoring twice, while Spurs failed to have a shot at goal.

It led Frank to change to a 4-2-3-1 system at half-time, but Arsenal's hat-trick hero Eberechi Eze scored his second just 35 seconds after the restart.

Asked whether he got his tactics wrong at his post-match press conference, Frank said: "I always take full responsibility. So the full responsibility will always be on me. Today, when we didn't perform, I picked a team that played 5-4-1.

"I changed it at half-time. Very, very clever. One minute into it, they scored to make it 3-0, and then the rest is history after that.

"What I would say is that no matter if you played one or another system, we needed to be more aggressive and be better than the duels - that doesn't matter what system.

"But I take the responsibility for everything today."

Jamie Carragher believes ex-Brentford boss Frank needs to be more positive if he is to be a success at Spurs.

He told Sky Sports: "The one negative so far under Thomas Frank is can he go from being a pragmatic coach and trying to make it difficult for the opposition, as he tried to do here, to more about how are they going score? How are they going to win a game?

"I can keep going back to the underlying numbers and the xG. It's very low.

"Even after watching the first five minutes of the game you're thinking 'what are Tottenham going to do here to hurt Arsenal?'

"That is the problem with every manager making a jump to a top team. You've got to have more than just trying to stop the opposition. That's not having a go at Thomas Frank. The top managers are there for a reason.

"They are special, they are elite. It's because they can coach teams to be difficult to beat at times, but also they can coach teams to win games. That is the big difference. If you don't get that right, you won't be in a job that long."

Neville: It could have been more embarrassing

"Spurs are going to get a lot of criticism off the back of this game. There is a lot of love for Thomas Frank and all of us want him to do well.

"But that first half does need some discussion. I've played against teams where they've come out to play and forgotten they are playing football. They just play one part, which is just to stop the other team by playing deep.

"Spurs had no idea how to get from front to back. If you're playing like that you have to win, because it looks really ugly if it doesn't come off. That's why you see Thomas Frank go more progressive at half-time.

"They looked like a team who had worked on how to stop the opposition and had forgotten about winning the game. When you push a team too much into that glass-half-empty mentality, it can really look ugly.

"It could have been worse and more embarrassing. They have to work on an identity they are going to stick to. They had no idea how to play through the thirds of the pitch, no pattern of how to play. That's got to be worked on."

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