24 September 2023 , 13:23
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Arsenal fans wasted little time in taunting their Tottenham counterparts over the departure of club legend Harry Kane to Bayern Munich earlier this summer.
The Gunners welcomed their local rivals to the Emirates for the first north London derby of the season. Heung-Min Son's role of leading the line marked the first time it wasn't Kane in the same position for this fixture since Emmanuel Adebayor played for Spurs in this clash more than 10 years ago.
Within seconds of the first whistle being blown, the home faithful burst into a chorus of 'Harry Kane, he left cause you're s***!'. Kane always enjoyed this particular fixture and is the all-time leading goalscorer in Premier League games between these two sides.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta was actually asked whether he was feeling any sort of relief over the fact his defenders would not have to deal with Kane's presence ahead of the game. "He was obviously a special player and everything went through him," said the Spaniard. "He was the one that glided everything together.
"(Tottenham) did it in many different ways from many different areas of the pitch. Now it’s a bit different. They have a different style from the last two coaches as well. They, for sure, have some specificity in certain moments that they make with certain players so I think it’s a very different team.
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"We just focus on the team that they have and what we have to do to play the best possible way to create problems for them. They have many other qualities and many other players who can create and make a difference in the game. Probably it’s a big change for them but they’ve adapted really well."
Both Arsenal and Spurs have enjoyed very impressive starts to the new season and the stakes were high coming into this derby clash. From their respective opening five games, both sides had won four and drawn one.
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Harry Kane left Tottenham to join Bayen Munich this summer (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)Spurs have shown very little signs of missing their former frontman, having scored more goals at this stage of this season than after five games last term. With that being said, Kane has hardly slowed down either since making the move to the Bundesliga behemoths in August.
The England captain has seven goals in his first five games for Bayern Munich, including a heroic hat-trick on Saturday afternoon. He'll undoubtedly be keeping a keen eye on what occurs at the Emirates today and hoping his former side fare well without him.
Bukayo Saka's strike deflected off of Cristian Romero to hand the Gunners the lead, before Son tapped home from close range to level the scores before the interval.