Eberechi Eze\u2019s hat-trick against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday reshaped the conversation around Arsenal\u2019s midfield hierarchy after a 4\u20131 win at the Emirates Stadium. Martin \u00d8degaard watched the victory from the sidelines after missing the fixture through injury, while Eze produced a historic display that prompted sharp commentary from Thierry Henry.<\/p>\n
In his role as a Sky Sports pundit Henry suggested Eze belongs in the centre of the pitch and implied the club captain might have to make way. \u201cBy the way, if I was Martin \u00d8degaard…\u201d he began before trailing off. \u201cI said it, this guy [Eze] is a [No.] 10 for me, however you want to look at it. He\u2019s not a winger, he\u2019s a 10. He needs to be in the middle of the park and he showed it tonight. That\u2019s what you want: healthy competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry underlined Arsenal\u2019s depth in the fixture, referring to the team\u2019s ability to cope despite absences. \u201cWe have a great squad,\u201d he said. \u201cI said it before the game, let\u2019s embrace it. A lot of people were talking before the game about who was missing, let\u2019s talk about what the team did today. And if you want to win the league, this is how you win the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also argued that the lack of a recognised striker allowed Eze room to operate. \u201cWe need a [No.] 9, that\u2019s what everyone was saying,\u201d Henry said. \u201cAnd I would say also that you play without a 9 and you score four goals in open play and your [No.] 10 suddenly comes into the picture because your 9 drops, so you can get the 9 dropping for the 10 to get in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s result came against visitors who delivered the lowest xG (0.07) of any Premier League team so far this season. The match entry list places Eze alongside historical hat-trick scorers in Opta records, with Ted Drake (Arsenal, October 1934), Terry Dyson (Tottenham, August 1961), Alan Sunderland (Arsenal, December 1978) and Eberechi Eze (Arsenal, November 2025).<\/p>\n
Tottenham manager Thomas Frank had joked to assembled media, \u201cWho\u2019s Eze?\u201d and later described him as a \u201cvery good player\u201d who is not a Tottenham player. Eze had been close to joining Spurs over the summer, with one report calling the pursuit a \u201cone-horse race,\u201d and was presented to Arsenal fans four days later. Prior to Sunday he had scored once, the winner against Crystal Palace, and created three chances from open play in 707 minutes. Within 200 seconds of the derby he played a pass into Declan Rice, who fired at Guglielmo Vicario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry argued Eze’s hat-trick against Tottenham strengthens his claim to Arsenal’s No.10 role today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1162,1006,1019],"class_list":["post-4663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-captaincy","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}