Fulham v Arsenal: what has happened in the past

 

 

By Tony Attwood

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Only one win for Fulham in the last 13 games between them and Arsenal, although because of their traditional raging negativity concerning Arsenal, the media are all pointing out the last four matches, as ever…

These have been a draw at Arsenal in August 2023, a Fulham win at the Cottage on New Year’s Eve that season, a draw the following December at the Cottage (or should we now call it the Restaurant?), and then a win on All Football Day this year at Arsenal.

Unfortunately for the media, this is exactly the same ploy they used against Olympiacos, focusing repeatedly on two individual matches, rather than allowing their readers to see that Arsenal had, in fact, won three of the last five games between the two clubs   Arsenal dutifully kept up that form and beat the Greek team, as we suggested they would on the balance of results.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can always get each match right, for if so, we’d have taken the people operating the football pools to the cleaners years ago.  But even so, having a broader approach rather than just picking out two Arsenal defeats and focusing utterly on them (as the media near-universally did for the game against the Olys), is not a clever way to do prediction, although it serves the media demand of constant Arsenal knocking.  It is merely a way to be negative.

So if we look at the overall pattern of results, Arsenal have won 43 games, 13 have been drawn, and nine have been lost.   That makes 14% won by Fulham over the centuries.

But we know, of course, that some results can be from ancient days, so we also look at recent times specifically, and taking the last 14 games, that is from November 2012, we have a run of one win for Fulham, four draws, and nine wins for Arsenal.

Now I suspect that unless the media realise what prats they made of themselves with their last round of predictions, they might have a go at telling us that Fulham will be a tough game, because Arsenal have only won one of their last four against Fulham, and that, of course, is true.  Two draws, a win for Fulham at home, a win for Arsenal at home.

And they may tell us Arsenal need to be wary, since Fulham were undefeated in September until their very last game.

But the reality is that Fulham’s three wins this season involved beating Bristol City (currently 10th in the Championship), Leeds United (newly promoted from the Championship), Brentford (currently 16th in the Premier League), and Cambridge United (11th in League Two, previously known as the 4th Division).

Of course, none of this means that Arsenal could put out their youth team and win, but it does give us a greater insight into this fixture.

Fulham, I suspect, won’t be feeling too bad about things because they have had something of a top-heavy run of fixtures for the first part of this season, and the two teams they have so far beaten are currently 15th and 16th in the League.  Which means, I suspect that they will approach this weekend’s game with 12 behind the ball (all of their team and a linesman inclined to wave any Arsenal attack as being offside.

But the fact remains that in the last 21 games between the two clubs, Fulham have beaten Arsenal twice, both times at their “Cottage.”

Not surprisingly, given the huge cost of their new restaurant building programme, Fulham didn’t make much of a splash in the transfer market last summer, with just one big money signing, Kevin the winger from Shaktar Donesk. for around £35m.  A backup keeper came in for half a million, and there were a couple of loans, but that was it.

Clearly, the message is, stay in the Premier League, but don’t take risks – they need a full stadium for every game to pay off the costs of those seven stories of restaurant overhanging the Thames.  (Don’t go if you suffer from seasickness).