A Tottenham Hotspur supporter will be banned by the club after he was arrested for throwing a banana skin at the Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during Sunday’s north London derby.
Metropolitan Police confirmed seven arrests were made at the Emirates Stadium, where Arsenal beat their fierce rivals Spurs 4-2.
One of those arrests was of a man who threw a banana skin towards Aubameyang as the Gabonese striker celebrated scoring the opening goal of the match in front of the Spurs supporters.
A Spurs spokesman said: “Behaviour such as this is completely unacceptable and the supporter in question will be issued with a ban.”
There were also six arrests for public order offences – at least two of which are believed to be Arsenal supporters who lit smoke canisters during the match.
Aubameyang had opened the scoring before an Eric Dier header and a Harry Kane spot-kick sent Spurs in ahead at half-time. He went on to equalise, with Arsenal wrapping up the points through Alexandre Lacazette and Lucas Torreira strikes.
The unrest was not restricted to the stands as the two sets of players had to be separated following Dier’s equaliser. The England midfielder celebrated by putting his finger to his lips, with Arsenal substitute Stephan Lichtsteiner reacting angrily to the gesture and referee Mike Dean showing Dier a yellow card.
Tottenham coach Mauricio Pochettino ran down the touchline to help calm matters, with Dier afterwards defending his own actions in the incident. “I had my back to it all so I’m not too sure what happened,” he said of the scuffle.
“But this is football. It’s a derby. Football is all about emotion and I don’t understand how I can get a yellow card in that situation. It baffles me because if you take the emotion out of football you’re going to destroy the game for everyone.
“The ref said he gave me the yellow card because it was because of me that the whole thing started. If you watch it, we’re celebrating, I don’t leave the pitch at any point and some of their players that are on the bench come to us.
“Their players approached us. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. But it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t because of that we lost.”
Additional reporting by PA
