Micky: “The fans were unbelievable, we wanted to give them something back”

Micky van de Ven felt the fans ‘kept standing behind us’ as Arsenal eventually took the north London derby honours on Sunday.

The atmosphere crackled before kick-off and was there again at the end of the first half as Randal Kolo Muani’s fine strike levelled the score at 1-1 and something special looked on. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be as Viktor Gyokeres fired home two minutes into the second half, Eberechi Eze added his second for 3-1 and Gyokeres added the fourth in added time.

Micky, wearing the armband in Cuti Romero’s absence, told SPURSPLAY afterwards. “The fans were unbelievable today and I have to give credit to them for the full 90 minutes. I know it's also a really tough situation for them, but they kept standing behind us today.

“It was really important for us, and I think we felt it as well. We wanted to do everything to give them something back but, unfortunately, we couldn't do that today.”

Reflecting on the 90 minutes, Micky added: “It was a really tough game. I think in the first half we were going into half-time with 1-1 and I think there's a good feeling from our side. Obviously, we suffered again, didn't play really bad, but then we came out in the second half, they scored after two minutes and after that it was really tough.”