By Tony Attwood
- Fulham v Arsenal: back to the era of thick and fast
- Fulham v Arsenal, the referee’s form and his favoured results
- Fulham v Arsenal: what has happened in the past
- Fulham v Arsenal: at last we can have a league match again
That quote in the headline above comes, as you may know, from Arsene Wenger.. Arsenal didn’t win the league that season, Leicester (currently five points off the leaders in the Championship) did, but we get the idea.
But now we are back at the top, and the long wait for another title means, by and large, it is only the journalists who are making a big fuss about it. The rest of us have fingers crossed (which, yes, does make typing difficult). But unlike the journos, we’ve seen it before. “Chickens”, “hatching” and other idioms are best left to those with little knowledge, but a lot of space to fill..
According to a calculation in the Guardian, which I haven’t bothered to check, and may or may not be right, Arsenal have spent 773 days at the top of the Premier League since they last won the title. (They, of course, don’t mention that in doing so Arsenal had the only Unbeaten season, but then, they’ve probably forgotten. Since the Unbeaten season, Arsenal have won the FA Cup five times, giving Arsenal 14 FA Cup triumphs, more than any other club.)
But during recent years, Chelsea, ManC, ManU and Liverpool have won the Lague, so it seems Arsenal really aren’t very good according to the media. And to make the point the Guardian tells us that Arsenal’s recent victories (against Newcastle, Olympiakos and West Ham) are against sides that “sides Arsenal have struggled against under Mikel Arteta.” So, probably just like then.
But this plays it down a bit, doesn’t it? There have been two successive victories over Newcastle. Four wins in the last six against Olympiakos with a goal total of ten for Arsenal and four for Oly. And three wins in the last four against West Ham with a goal difference of 13 for Arsenal and three of Wham. And they are saying Arsenal have struggled to beat these teams!!! This is taking the standard everyday bias of newspapers against Arsenal to such insane proportions that it looks like a fantasy world.
As Arteta so rightly pointed out, the media’s view was, “‘You go to Newcastle, if you lose in Newcastle, the Premier League is over,’” That is indeed the mindless gibberish of the media utterly unableto cope with the fact that their manipulations of the statistics used to suggest Arsenal would lose against Newcastle, Oly and Wham were indeed manipulations, and they know it.
They will of course, go on knocking and knocking Arsenal again and again, and if we should win the league this season, they will find excuses, most likely Arsenal being lucky because Liverpool, ManC and Chelsea were having rebuilds while Tottenham were, well, they haven’t won the league in 64 years, so we don’t really worry there. They won’t mention their owner’s suspended prison sentence, nor their debts either.
On the injury league table, Arsenal have sunk a little having five men down, placing the club in ninth position, alongside Burnley, Leeds United, Liverpool, and Wolverhampton. Here’s the table
- Chelsea: 12 players injured
- Sunderland: 8 players injured
- Tottenham Hits: 8 players injured
- Brighton and Hove Albion: 7 players injured
- Aston Villa: 6 players injured
- Everton: 6 players injured
- Fulham: 6 players injured
- Newcastle United: 6 players injured
And here’s the team
Sports Mole go for an Arsenal win and have a team of
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori;
Eze, Zubimendi, Rice;
Saka, Gyokeres, Trossard
Goal proclaims today, “The Gunners haven’t won at Craven Cottage in their previous two attempts,” but does have the decency to predict Fulham 1-3 Arsenal. They go with much the same beam but have Zbimendi in midfield
Reya
Calafiori, Gabriel, Saliba, Timber
Merino, Rice, Eze
Trossard, Gyokeres, Saka
TalkSport seem to have backed off, giving a starting XI. But Racing Post oblige not only with a starting XI but a subs bench too. Their team change has Zubimendi, in the middle of midfield and no Merino, and they have a subs list of Merino, Martinelli, Norgaard, Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly, Mosquera, Hincapie, White.
So there, more or less, we are. More tomorrow.
Leicester won on penalties 2015-16 (exactly as Liverpool last year); 13 pens for Leicester. 2 forn Arsenal. The difference at the end was 10 points (just as for Pool). And with 11 penalties more (9), you win, yes, you do! Jamie Vardy was the winner, oh didn’t he rumble…
Looks like Chelsea have moved from getting most yellow cards to most red cards.
Well, we are winning games we were not winning last year.
Yes, difficult it is…but ways are found.
And in the end you could feel Fulham were just cooked.
Anyway… top of the league for one more week. Can’t any better then that….
A good game where once again we found a way to win. It helps that we have the best defence in the League and that we have so many different players capable of finding the back of the net.
For the statistics lovers, Arsenal have had a second game in a row where the Arsenal opponent was unable to get one shot on target.
The last time it happened was against Fulham in the 2003/2004 season.
In my recollection of PL refereeing, the non-penalty would most probably have been a penalty had it happened in our box…… that being said we won.
Let’s hope Manure can tie their game.
More on statistics. Fulham 11 fouls, Arsenal 4 fouls…. zero cards the whole game. Not a single one.
A good win at a ground we haven’t been winning a lot over the last seasons.
I have yet to see mention that the utterly incompetent Attwell (he could instigate a fight at the Womens’ Institute} was on VAR. I am convinced
had it been at the other end he would not have intervened regarding the penalty. It appears different rules apply when awarding penalties for or
against Arsenal. I eagerly await Mr Gallagher’s assessment on Refwatch. No surprises anticipated!
Re the penalty; the commentators and the replays themselves focused on whether the defender got his foot to ball before Saka. He might have. I didn’t hear a mention about the shove on Saka’s back which caused the fall. Not a foul? Or later in the game when Gyokeres was taken down in the box. Replay says nothing in it. I don’t know what constitutes a foul anymore.