'Painful' and 'no fight' - Spurs sorry for derby display

Thomas Frank's Spurs have lost three of their last five Premier League games

Tottenham manager Thomas Frank and goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario apologised to fans following Sunday's hapless performance against Arsenal in the north London derby.

Spurs were beaten 4-1 at Emirates Stadium - their joint-heaviest Premier League defeat by the Gunners - with Eberechi Eze scoring a hat-trick against the club he almost joined in the summer.

Richarlison replied with a sensational 40-yard effort, but that was scant consolation for the visitors, whose expected-goals (xG) rating of 0.07 was the lowest in the top flight this season.

"It's extremely painful - I won't walk away from that," Frank, whose side have now lost three of their last five league games, told Sky Sports. "We can only apologise to the fans for that performance.

"It was a bad performance. I've seen a lot of character and fight in this team, but we didn't win enough duels."

Frank switched to a back three against the leaders, but the move failed to pay off as Arsenal cut through Spurs time and time again in the first half and deservedly led 2-0 at the break thanks to goals from Leandro Trossard and Eze.

The Dane changed the system at the break, but former Crystal Palace man Eze scored the third 35 seconds into the second half before completing the scoring 14 minutes from time.

"I will always take responsibility for my choice," Frank continued. "My view on it is that no matter what formation we played, we didn't have enough duels or intensity in the decisive moments, [which makes it] very difficult to win a football match."

Vicario echoed his manager's sentiments as he told Sky Sports: "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 at this level.

"We were too passive. The gameplan we prepared was different. The emotions are high, but we need cool heads."

'We'll keep noise out and focus'

This was not the first time this season Tottenham have struggled to threaten the opposition in the final third.

In the 1-0 defeat at home by Chelsea earlier this month, Spurs managed only three attempts and posted an xG of 0.1 - the second lowest in the Premier League this season.

Their xG of 0.17 in the 1-0 reverse against Bournemouth in August was only marginally better.

"It has been an ongoing theme that we are working hard to improve," added Frank, whose side visit holders Paris St-Germain in the Champions League on Wednesday. "It doesn't look good today, or against Chelsea.

"There will be noise - we played against our biggest rivals and we lost badly - but we'll keep noise out and focus.

"I know this team is competitive. Of course it looks bad, it was not good enough."