So often in his short career has Dele Alli been the major talking point after one of Tottenham's most important wins of the season. 

That was certainly the case on Wednesday night as the England international capped a man-of-the-match performance away to Arsenal with a glorious chip to seal a 2-0 victory. 

The midfielder has now scored 75 club goals by the tender age of just 22 - for some perspective, it took Frank Lampard another four years to reach that milestone. 

Unfortunately, however, much of the focus has centred on the unsavoury incident where a member of the home crowd threw a plastic bottle at the Spurs star.

After feeling his head, he turned towards the Arsenal fans and gave a '2-0' gesture, which was no less than the supporter in question deserved. 

If there's one thing we know about how Alli operates, it's that abuse like that is only going to fire him up all the more. 

In his post-match interview, he admitted:

"It made the goal a little bit sweeter and the win.”

To their credit, Arsenal have moved quickly to identify the offender. A club statement read:

"We have all been embarrassed by the individual who threw a bottle at Dele Alli.

"Behaviour of this type has no place at Emirates Stadium and after analysing CCTV footage, which showed him leaving the stadium after throwing the bottle, we have identified an image of the suspect."

Dele takes to Instagram 

A strong message, it would seem, and it is all the more important that the Gunners are firm about such behaviour in the current climate. 

On Instagram, Alli had a message of his own:

Alongside a picture of the water bottle in the air, he wrote the caption: 

"It was at this moment he knew... he f***** up."

The Lilywhites playmaker clearly isn't losing too much sleep over the incident, though as Mauricio Pochettino pointed out afterwards, it's fortunate that it was only a plastic bottle and there is still absolutely no excuse for hurling objects at a professional footballer. 

Spurs had the last laugh and Alli would later rile the fans even further by slipping the ball past Petr Cech and into the net despite the whistle already having been blown for offside.

Granit Xhaka made his feelings known on that occasion and the referee was none too pleased either. 

It matters little to the white side of north London, though, and Pochettino's men can now look forward to the Carabao Cup semi-finals in January, where they will face Chelsea.   

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