Coquelin-Elneny was a new partnership that only lasted 54 minutes.
As the senior partner in a new twin-anchor midfield, with a newly-signed Egyptian making his first league start, Coquelin should have tried to be more sensible than usual, more careful.
Instead, he lost the plot early on when, in an unpromising position in his own half, Coquelin was challenged by Dier, then lost his balance but won a 50-50 with Dele Alli, who didn’t go in hard as he usually would, which showed Alli was nowhere near fit, as I has suspected.
While on the ground this unprofessional French kid handled the ball with both arms, gave away a free-kick AND collected a yellow card, putting himself on a knife edge.
Suddenly, in 39 minutes, Welbeck found Bellerin and his firm pass across the box was backheeled by Ramsey, who sent the ball squirting unstoppably into the net.
So Arsenal were 1-0 up at half-time but in a challenging situation that could go pear-shaped at any moment.
Which it soon did when Coquelin rashly tried a sliding tackle that missed the ball and clipped Harry Kane by the left touchline.
Another yellow card, followed by a red.
Arsenal now had 10 men and when their zonal defence could not deal with an Eriksen corner, Lamela got to the ball with his left boot, the ball broke to Alderweireld, who banged in a low shot for 1-1 in 60.
Half an hour to play but Arsenal had a man less.
Two minutes later Kevin Wimmer hit a probing ball down the left flank, Mertesacker dawdled, Dele Alli backheeled to his mate Harry, who took one touch towards the side of the penalty area and fired a missile in off the far post.
Harry Kane has probably been trying to perfect that shot since he was 17 or 18 or 19, by hitting the outside of the ball hard, so that it bends wickedly towards the far side of the goal.
With the score balanced at 1-1 the home crowd didn’t want him to pass, so Kane just smashed it as soon as he could and as hard as he could. There was no Arsenal player to stop him and once again they had conceded two goals in three minutes.
But suddenly Mertesacker redeemed himself by taking the ball off Kane on the halfway line and finding Ramsey, who picked out Bellerin on the right wing.
His classy pass behind the Spurs defence found the scooting run of little Alexis Sanchez with exquisite accuracy and Sanchez fired his first-time shot that bounced and went in off the fingers of Hugo Lloris for 2-2.
Either team could have won but Arsenal didn’t deserve more than a point, despite scoring two very good goals, and despite Elneny and Ospina proving me wrong by playing well. They were both ready.
The score could have been worse.
Gabriel, with no opponent near him, tried to clear a ball that ricocheted up off his shin towards the top corner but landed on the roof of the net. In that jittery moment Gabriel almost perpetrated The Own-Goal of the Season.
Eric Dier should have been sent off for fouling Giroud.
So King Wenger’s 48th North London derby ended in a 2-2 draw that did not put his team any nearer to second-placed Spurs.
With any luck my further thoughts on the Spurs style and Arsenal’s prospects will be posted in (Part 2) tomorrow.
Since last week my Tuesday morning class starts 35 minutes earlier, so I’ll be soon shooting up the road.
Arsenal v Hull was an FA Cup match both managers wanted to lose, so I wasn’t motivated by that, let alone by tonight’s replay.