Wenger speaks on Spurs finishing above Arsenal for first time in 22 years

Arsenal boss, Arsene Wenger, has admitted that Tottenham Hotspur deserved to win the last ever North London Derby at White Hart Lane, but insisted he was “not happy” about finishing below them for the first time in 22 years.

Dele Alli and Harry Kane scored for Spurs as they won 2-0 on Sunday.

“Yes, overall they deserved the win. Because first of all they scored two goals and we didn’t but it was an even game until the first goal. Then straight away after that we conceded the penalty.

“You could see we were affected by that and Spurs looked more dangerous than before.

“And as we didn’t come back to 2-1 they were comfortable. We did not create enough but that is down to Spurs as well, they were sharper than us physically and we were too restricted in our game.

“At the moment we are not back to the level of confidence we need to play in the way we can. The desire was there but we lacked something today,” Wenger told SkySports after the game.

And on Spurs finishing above Arsenal for the first time since 1995, Wenger could only congratulate his North London rivals.

He said: “Well done to them, but when you start the championship the target is not to finish above Spurs, it is to fight for the title. In 20 years it happened once.

“Mathematically it has to happen once. We are not happy with it but we don’t compare ourselves to Spurs, we compare ourselves to where we want to be.”