Premier League: Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Arsenal [Match Highlights & Goals]
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Arsenal's miserable start to the new campaign continued Sunday afternoon as Tottenham won 2-1 in a controversial north London derby at White Hart Lane.
Kyle Walker's long-range strike 17 minutes from time gave Spurs victory in a hard-fought match and condemned Arsenal to a fourth defeat of the season.
Bacary Sagna was withdrawn with a suspected broken leg, as the Gunners all but conceded defeat in the title race.
"At the moment we have to set ourselves a realistic target to get in touch with those teams who are fighting to stay in the Champions League," manager Arsene Wenger told reporters.
"To say we will win the league is not realistic. We are 12 points behind Manchester United and Manchester City so it is not realistic today to say that we will win the league.
"We have to fight to come back into a much better position."
Rafael van der Vaart gave Spurs the lead just before half-time although replays suggested the Dutchman handled the ball before rifling a shot past goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny.
Aaron Ramsey equalised for the Gunners five minutes after the break when he turned in Alex Song's cross. However, Arsenal's circumspect defending allowed substitute Sandro too much time to cross and, when the ball fell to Walker 25-yards out, the young defender's shot evaded Szczesny to hand Spurs the victory.
Arsenal slip to 15th on the back of this weekend's results and Wenger was even asked whether he thought the club were now in a relegation battle.
"No," the Frenchman said. "In the first half we played a little bit but with the hand-brake on. Even playing like that we had four chances. At half-time we came out and had a go at them and got it back to 1-1
"I felt again that we didn't push on enough to let them get back into the game. We lack a little bit of confidence at the moment, and we just need to protect a result when we have one."
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