Dejan Kulusevski has admitted Tottenham are lacking Arsenal’s maturity and mentality.

Arsenal maintained their push for the title and dented Spurs’ top-four hopes with a 3-2 win in a chaotic game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday.

Mikel Arteta’s side led by three goals at the interval after twice exploiting Spurs’ weakness at set-pieces, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg heading into his own net and Kai Havertz nodding home unmarked.

In between, Bukayo Saka scored a brilliant breakaway goal, seconds after Kulusevski appeared to have been caught in the Arsenal box — but the Swede afterwards said he did not remember if he was fouled.

Asked about the gap to rivals Arsenal, Kulusevski said: “It is not [big] but they are much more disciplined and more mature. That is where we are lacking.

“They score on corners. We concede. It is quite easy. It is about being strong in difficult moments like a set-piece.The second goal is too easy. A long ball from Kai [Havertz] to Saka and it is 2-0. We have to improve on that. You cannot concede easy goals like that.

“[Mentality] is all in life. That is the only thing that matters: the head. You can be how good you want in football, but you have got to be strong in every situation.

“Of course, Arsenal have obviously done that in the last period. They fight to win the league. We still have to do that. We are improving in other areas. We still lack a little bit in that part.”

Spurs rallied in the second half, with Cristian Romero capitalising on David Raya’s poor pass to score and Heung-min Son’s penalty setting up a tense finale.

“Talking about mentality, do you think that it is easy to be down 3-0 at half time and then go out and play 3-2 against the ones that are first?” Kulusevski added.

“That is also mentality. Second half was unbelievable. It is just that you have to show it for 90 minutes.”

Spurs have little time to lick their wounds, with another huge derby against Chelsea to come at Stamford Bridge on Thursday night.

“It is more important than usual,” Kulusevski said. “We have to win. After you lose two games like this, you have to bounce back.”

Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou was left frustrated after Micky van de Ven had a goal ruled out by the VAR at 1-0 for a fractional offside call after Pedro Porro’s shot ricocheted off two Arsenal players and fell into the Dutchman’s path.

“I really don’t understand the rules in those situations,” Kulusevski said. “It touched two Arsenal players and it is still offside. It was strange.”