- Fulham v Arsenal: the foibles of the referee
- Fulham v Arsenal: High scoring and those red and yellow cards
- Fulham v Arsenal: why we should never shout “Shoot!” when a chance arises
- Fulham v Arsenal: time for Arsenal to make amends – and the option of a new forward
By Bulldog Drummond
So ahead of today’s game we’ve got all of the “Big 7” in the top ten places in the league. A win for Arsenal would take the club onto 43 points at the top of the league, which could then be overtaken by Liverpool and/or Manchester City each with their own game in hand. Tottenham won’t move up the league even if they win, nor down if they lose.
Meanwhile, although there is a lot of criticism of Arsenal’s forward line no one mentions that Arsenal have the second-best defence in the league, nor the lowest number of yellow cards in the league. Neither of those issues win titles, but each can go some way to helping.
Arsenal’s team news is fairly straightforward: Kai Havertz is available after a one-match suspension while Thomas Partey, Jurrien Timber, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Fabio Vieira remain out with injury.
That injury level is pretty much average for clubs at the moment. Brighton have 11 players out and three teams including Tottenham have ten men down. All the big clubs have a fair number of injuries apart from Manchester City who just have three.
Fulham go into this game on the back of a bad run which itself followed a really good run. First they beat Nottingham Forest 5-0 and then West Ham United 5-0 (both at home) which took them up to tenth in the league. But since then they have lost 3-0 to Newcastle, 2-0 to Burnley and 3-0 to Bournemouth. The names Hyde and Jekyll spring to mind. It seems that if they were to lose today without scoring it would be the first time this has happened since 1971.
In those days they were in League Division Two, which was indeed the second tier. Their results were a 0-3 home defeat to Queens Park Rangers, 2-0 away to Middlesbrough, 0-2 at home to Burnley and then finally 4-0 away to Swindon.
In their fifth match in the run they beat Orient 2-1, but then lost the next two games, again with scoring, against Luton (2-0) and Sheffield Wednesday (4-0). They finished 20th out of 22 that season but didn’t go down.
Perhaps in the light of this we might compare where the two teams were after 19 games last season
Last season
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 19 | 16 | 2 | 1 | 45 | 16 | 29 | 50 |
| 6 | Fulham | 19 | 9 | 4 | 6 | 32 | 28 | 4 | 31 |
This season
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal | 19 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 36 | 18 | 18 | 40 |
| 14 | Fulham | 19 | 6 | 3 | 10 | 26 | 34 | -8 | 21 |
So Arsenal are now ten points worse off than a year ago, and so are Fulham. But better news comes with the fact that Arsenal are unbeaten in away matches in London across their last nine games, which I think is a record. And we generally win the last game of the year.
As for the team. The Standard gives us
-
- Raya;
-
- White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko;
-
- Odegaard, Rice, Havertz;
-
- Saka, Jesus, Martinelli
and so does The Racing Post
And so goes Sports Mole
and with three out of three that probably means that is who will start.
The two changes I would suggest would be the speedy KIWOR and the Reliable false number 9, Tossard when nearer to goal is his best position. Not sure if we have not scored lots of goals when he starts as a number 9.
Raya;
White, Saliba, Gabriel, (KIWOR);
Odegaard, Rice, Havertz;
Saka, (TOSSARD), Martinelli
Tis must be the worst game so far in terms of missed passes statistics… pathetic.
Same meat different gravy . Nothing changed ,same slow build up ,over passing and no flair or grit in midfield . Absolutely no goal threat .
10 shots 1 on target .
Beaten by a team of rejects .( 3 of ours )
Potter
“Same meat different gravy”
No it wasn’t.
V West Ham 30 shots 8 on target against west Hams 6 for 3 on target.
V Fulham 13 shots 3 on target against Fulham’s15 shots for 4 on target
I’ll ignore the fact you had to make up stats (Arsenals shots) to make your point, but they are 2 completely different matches. One, we totally dominated in every parameter except goals and should of won, would of won but for one thing, poor finishing. We played well.
Today, apart from possession we didn’t dominate another parameter and played poorly. We did not deserve to win.
Two completely different matches played in two completely different manners. It was not ‘same meat different gravy’ in any way, shape or form.
And this is my point. If you come here just on days like today, which are very rare, and have a moan that’s up to you. We looked poor. The stats say we were poor. If you want to moan well that’s up to you.
But don’t try and justify what you said after the West Ham game by suggesting they are the same because the 2 games had absolutely nothing in common, except for the fact we lost.
Now I’m going to have my Chinese, get pissed and pretend like it never happened.
Happy New you to you all.
Jeez, that was really poor., as bad as I have seen this team for some time. For some reason, Fulham seem to cause problems
They looked like they were running on empty to me, maybe one or two carrying injuries we may not know about.
What is concerning, the substitutions did nothing at all, at least that I could see.
They cannot afford to slip into a malaise, though it’s been a very poor week,
Possession wins nothing , goals do and we have been frustratingly impotent for some time. And I took my figures from SKY who covered the game
Porter never trust Sky stats. I was watching on two streams as I do out of a precaution if one goes down. One was sky and the other was Setanta. After 25 minutes on the Sky stats it said Arsenal 0 shots and 0 shots on target. A minute later or so on the same 25 minutes on Setanta it said Arsenal 4 shots of whom 1 on target. When I saw the Sky stat I immediately knew they were telling a lie as I remembered at least the shot from Martinelli as a shot on target.
I’m so glad you wrote that in. I was just watching on Sky, and saw that stat come up and immediately thought I had consumed too much Christmas pudding laced with brandy, as I was certain the number was wrong.
Incidentally, do you have Christmas pudding in Belgium?