Having lost their last 2 home games at the Emirates this season Arsenal took on Fulham this Saturday knowing fully well that anything other than a win would seriously dent their title chances.
The game started of a bit slow, with occasional spells of high tempo in between. The first chance came in the 5th min, when Squillaci headed a Wilshere cross into the path of Arshavin. Unfortunately the Russian fired his volley straight at Schwarzer.
In the 12th min the tide began to swing the Gunners way, when Arshavin made a dazzling run from the middle before playing a sweet through-ball to Nasri, who if I may add timed his run to perfection. Sadly, the French-mans toe-poke went wide.
1 min later we were 1 nil up. Arshavin collected the ball from Hughes and made another dazzling rum towards the Fulham defence, on seeing Samir free on the right, the Russian unselfishly played the ball to him. Cool, calm and collective are the best ways to describe the next few seconds…On receiving the ball from Andrey, Nasri dummied 2 Fulham defenders before smashing the ball into Schwarzer’s net.
From that time on, the Gunners kept up the tempo, and should have at least had 1 more goal. Arshavin collected the ball from Murphy in the 23rd min, and fired a grounded shot straight towards Schwarzer. And Alex Song 3 minutes later, should have done better as he fired his volley wide via a TR7 cross.
Sadly, these ‘not taking chances phrase’ was to comeback and haunt Arsenal, for in the 29th min, Kamara equalised for Fulham after being played a delightful through-ball from Dempsey.
From that time on we had lost everything. You could probably compare us to a baby who had his candy taken away from him by a bully. Helpless and confused we had lost our tempo, our way, were we even playing ?
In the 44th min, Kamara squandered a 1-0n-1 chance with Luke, thus pretty much summing up how we were playing in the latter stages of the first half !
When the second half began, we were not really playing well. Only after Rosicky hit his volley wide in the 51 min, did we start to get back into the game.
In the 56th min, Arshavin showed some lovely quick-feet on the right of the box, before dumming Dempsey, and firing his shot at Schwarzer. The Australian did brilliantly to save.
From that time on it was mainly a game full of short, concise dry spells of passing and losing possession for us. In view to go ahead the boss even brought on RVP and Theo within a span of 10 mins.
But the winning goal came in the 75th min, and what a goal it was. It really is hard to describe some goals, and boy was this one of them. Samir Nasri, after collecting a soft through ball from RVP danced his way through the Fulham defense (again !), dummying Panstil and Schwarzer before smashing the ball into the net on the half-turn. A goal worthy enough to win a match ? Yes.
Following that goal, Fulham dominated us, lets be honest…they really dominated us, in terms of possession and in terms of corners ! To be more clear, if it was not for a another beautiful save by Luke to keep out Gera’s shot, you would probably find one very angry blogger over here….
But, jokes apart, we held on, and that’s what is important… Next up, Manchester united away ( in the Premier League )…
Watch goals from Arsenal 2-1 Fulham
Cheer-i-o,
