Arsenal's William Saliba trolls Richarlison after crushing north London derby victory over Tottenham as Declan Rice weighs in with 'locked up' comment - despite Brazilian scoring wonder goal

Eze stole the show at the Emirates on Sunday, bagging his first hat-trick for the Gunners to secure a crucial win. The former Crystal Palace man was wanted by Tottenham in the summer transfer window but ended up moving to Arsenal instead. Eze showed Spurs what they were missing with a superb showing to condemn Thomas Frank's side to a fifth Premier League defeat in 12 matches. Richarlison did manage a brilliant effort for the visitors, beating David Raya from just beyond the centre circle, but it was the only real bright spark for Spurs on another tough afternoon.

Richarlison was targeted after the game in a social media post by Saliba. The Arsenal defender posted photos of the match, leading with one of the two players tangling, with the caption: "North London is still Red." Team-mate Rice was among the thousands who commented, posting a padlock emoji and the word "up" to summarise Saliba's performance against the Brazilian star.

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Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was understandably delighted at seeing his team swat aside their local rivals and extend their lead. He reserved special praise for Eze after the game, telling reporters: "Things happen for a reason. After the international duty, he had two days off, and after one day he wanted to train, and he wanted to improve, and he wanted to do extra practice and he was asking me questions about this and that. When a player has such a talent, and his desire is at that level, then these things happen. And he fully deserves it. I’m so happy for him, because since the day that he came, he brought something else to the team. So it’s a joy, it’s an aura that this team needed and hopefully it will give him a lot of confidence, to him and the team, that at any moment he can win us a game. And that’s the ability that he has and he certainly needs to fulfil that talent."

It was a different story for the visitors, with manager Frank apologising to fans after another derby defeat. Spurs have only managed one point in games against Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United this season - a record Frank admits is not good enough.

He told reporters: "I think it's three different games. I think the United game was a much better performance than today and the Chelsea one. I also think there's a difference in the Chelsea and the Arsenal performances. Even though both of them look bad on paper. I need to watch this back as well. I think there's definitely a lot to work on still. I think it's fair to say that we are very disappointed and unhappy with the performance today. I don't want to run away from that. I apologise to the fans. I think it's also fair to say where we're coming from. We finished 17th last year. And we've tried to build something, which today didn't look like we tried to build something."

Arsenal's win will provide real momentum ahead of a huge week for the Gunners. Arteta's side face Bayern Munich next in the Champions League, with both sides still boasting a perfect record in the competition so far. After that, it's a trip to take on Chelsea in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge. The Blues can cut the gap to Arsenal with a victory on Sunday afternoon, but another win for Arteta's men would move them nine points clear of Enzo Maresca's side.