Eberechi Eze’s Dream Comes True as Brilliant Arsenal Star Ends 47-year Wait

After snubbing Tottenham to join Arsenal in the summer, boyhood Gunner Eberechi Eze enjoyed a fairytale first North London derby as he netted a stunning hat-trick

Eberechi Eze admitted all his prayers were answered as he scored a fairytale hat trick to send Arsenal six points clear in the title race.

Boyhood Arsenal fan Eze, 27, became just the fourth player to score a hat trick in the North London derby and the first since Alan Sunderland in 1978.

It was an incredible story for Eze who turned down Tottenham to join Arsenal for £67.5m after making a phone call to Mikel Arteta, pleading with the Gunners boss to sign him.

Eze said: “It’s special. I am grateful. I prayed for it. This is what I pray for. I prayed for a hat-trick so I am grateful to God. That’s a good one man. Enjoyable day. Happy to help the team and to win today was special.

“That was the prayer today. God gave it to me and that is faith, man. All my family is here and that makes it even more special for me. It is special. Words can’t explain this one today.”

Gunners boss Arteta said: “Things happen for a reason. And 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.”

But Arteta insisted he could not get carried away even after taking advantage of their title rivals slipping up. But he insisted the gap meant little. “In this league? Not much. We are doing really well.

“You have to go game by game and the league is so tough, the margins teams are winning games now is so reduced. We have to maintain our momentum, enjoy today and then tomorrow, Bayern Munich.”

Tottenham boss Thomas Frank apologised to the fans after their defeat. “This is of course hugely disappointing that we didn’t perform better in the game against Arsenal our biggest rivals. I can only apologise to the fans for that,” said Frank.

“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 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.”