There were times when this match threatened to turn into a real old firecracker of a north London derby.

In truth it never quite reached the high explosive stage, entertaining though it was.

Arsenal dominated proceedings but the reaction of the players at the end — with several in red sinking to their haunches — told its own story.

Tottenham had been canny enough to eke out a draw, their manager Mauricio Pochettino describing the outcome as “a good point.”

The Argentinian said his side had shown they could “compete on the pitch with a very big team like Arsenal.”

Arsene Wenger meanwhile accused Spurs of time-wasting throughout but sought to fire up his men for Galatasaray’s Champions League visit on Wednesday.

“I must give credit to my team because once again we came back and put a huge effort in together” he said,

The Gunners are yet to taste defeat in six league games and that was something Wenger was keen to highlight: “I think the positive is that we are unbeaten.

“We have to keep that unbeaten record. Today we would have won had we not conceded the first goal.”

Though it had been goalless at the break the traffic had been almost exclusively towards the Spurs goal.

The standout performer of the first half had been Hugo Lloris. The French number one made several fine saves from Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere and most notably stopped a low drive from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain which was fizzing into the corner.

Wenger was forced into two changes before the break — captain Mikel Arteta and Aaron Ramsey both retiring with injuries which are expected to keep them out of midweek action.

This then seemed to herald a higher tempo from the home side but also allowed their old rivals more time and space in which to play their counter-attacking game.

On 56 minutes the Lilywhites took a shock lead when Mathieu Flamini was robbed by the impressive Christian Eriksen. Erik Lamela then fed the free-scoring Nacer Chadli who tucked the ball low past Wojciech Szczesny.

Soon after, Alexis Sanchez was summoned from the bench in place of Wilshere.

With a quarter of an hour remaining Arsenal hauled themselves level thanks to Oxlade-Chamberlain who claimed his first goal of the season with an effort high into the net from six yards.

Thereafter Spurs were doing little more than holding on.