Tottenham boss Thomas Frank issued an apology after his side were thrashed by Arsenal in the north London derby. The Lilywhites were thumped 4-1 as Arsenal moved six points clear of Chelsea at the top of the Premier League table.

Tottenham arrived at the Emirates Stadium with the unenviable task of overcoming a Gunners team that had conceded just five goals in the Premier League all season.

And the hosts dominated from start to finish, with Leandro Trossard and Eberechi Eze finding the back of the net before the interval. Eze struck his side’s third goal of the afternoon just after half-time, with Richarlison then pulling a goal back for the visitors as he chipped David Raya from 45 yards.

But Eze killed the game off with a hat-trick goal 14 minutes before full-time, with Spurs ending the day in ninth place.

“I think it is extremely painful,” Frank told Sky Sports after the clash. “I won’t talk away from that. It was a bad performance. It was completely the opposite of what the intention was when we came here. We can only apologise to the fans for the performance.”

The Dane then told Match of the Day: “Very difficult afternoon. Bad performance. It’s extremely painful to stand here after that game.

“We can only apologise to the fans for not performing better. I was very confident we could be competitive today. We weren’t. That we need to look at with a cool and calm head and work out what we need to change.”

Meanwhile, Guglielmo Vicario also offered an apology as the Tottenham goalkeeper opened up on how the Spurs players were feeling.

“A very bad night for us,” he stated. “First of all we have to apologise to the people that support us every day. They expected us to fight and today we didn’t fight. That’s not negotiable to do in football in this level.

“It’s a tough night, a very bad defeat, but we have to stick together. We have a big night on Wednesday [in the Champions League] but we need to stick together. Tonight we didn’t show the things we are normally capable of.

“The emotions are high, but we need cool heads and apologise to the people that support us and have travelled today.

“I think we waited too much to get into the game. We were too passive. The game plan we prepared was different. Today we didn’t fight. We have to apologise first of all for this. But we have to stick together and move on because on Wednesday we have a big night.”