LONDON -- Arsenal finally got a bit of luck and can now breathe a sigh of relief. Saturday's 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur will bring a much-needed reprieve to a team who had struggled to six points from six WSL games this season, but the result won't paper over the familiar cracks in their shaky display.

It has been 48 days since Arsenal last won a league game -- on their opening fixture of this campaign -- after that, it had been a rinse-and-repeat cycle of disappointing losses, and lackluster draws, even ones that were hard to fathom against newly promoted sides Crystal Palace and Birmingham City.

Arsenal maintained that it was a case of small margins not going in their favor and that they had been unlucky in games. But the tables seemed to turn in the North London derby on Saturday afternoon, with the Gunners getting the luck they had been hoping for.

Cathinka Tandberg's opening headed goal from a corner rocked them, but within three minutes Georgia Stanway fired a deflected shot into the back of the net to level things. Then, in the second half, Alessia Russo's struck a game-winning penalty, but Spurs defender Ella Morris had been penalized for a handball after the ball struck her arm from her teammate's clearance and, according to the IFAB rules: "if a player is hit on the hand/arm by the ball from a team-mate's kick/header? This is not a handball."

After the game Spurs boss Martin Ho was understandably unhappy. "I think the refereeing has got worse than it was last year," he told a news conference. "My interpretation of the rule is, if your teammate hits it and your teammate is one yard away, time and distance is taken into account and it's not a penalty."

But the Gunners won't care. The go-ahead goal merited an emphatic celebration from the players; they hadn't celebrated their equalizer at all and this was perhaps the first time since their campaign moved in a downward trajectory that those on the pitch have looked together.

The manner in which Arsenal have been scoring their goals is reflective of the state of the team. Each one has come from a moment of individual brilliance or quality from one player, or luck; there have been no team goals and certainly not much combination play.

At times against Spurs, the Gunners looked like a team that don't play or even train regularly together, and that has been their issue all season. There is little remanence of the "one club mentality" that was drilled into them so heavily during their UEFA Women's Champions League winning campaign two seasons ago. They had 14 shots, with five on target, 28 touches in the box and 99 successful final-third passes, but their conversion rate and quality of chances is still lacking.

Before Saturday's outing, despite taking the third-most shots (121), Arsenal had the worst conversion rate (4.1%), the third-worst shooting accuracy (30.6%) and the third-lowest average xG per shot (0.09) in the WSL so far this season. They had ranked in the top two for conversion rate in both of the two previous campaigns.

Manager Renee Slegers has stuck to her guns when it comes to squad management and tactics, though it has led to a number of poor performances. Russo, despite being a clinical and effective No. 9 central striker, was deployed as a No. 10 midfielder again, forcing diminutive winger Olivia Smith to play up front on her own, with striker Stina Blackstenius only used off the bench.

There are injuries in the squad, namely Kim Little and Mariona Caldentey, leaving rotational options limited. However, Slegers was opting to play her players out of position before that duo were injured. Caldentey was being deployed on the wing before her injury, leaving even more questions over her selection, while new right back Ona Batlle has been used as a left back and has struggled.

Slegers has defended her decisions, but if Arsenal want to get back to winning well and regularly, then her selections need to make more sense and her tactics need to vastly improve as well.

Perhaps something could be learned from how Ho works with his Spurs side? Only Manchester City have scored more WSL goals than his Spurs this season, but off the back of back-to-back losses, conceding six goals to each London City and Chelsea, and despite a dismal record against top-four teams, the Spurs boss changed his tactics and opted not to risk too much. A decision that would have worked if not for the decisive penalty.

"I thought we nullified the threat, he said. "They created some chances; we had some moments, [but] we just lacked that cutting edge maybe in the final third at times. We were defensively much better, much more organized, more aggressive. The way it was decided is frustrating."

For Arsenal, a win is a win, and that is important in the context of their season, but this result won't eradicate the issues that have left the team so far adrift of the WSL title race already.

At full-time, the players ran straight over to the packed away end to celebrate in front of the travelling fans. The victory has earned Slegers some time; but it needs to be the catalyst to overturn the club's poor start to the season if she is to survive any longer.