Arsenal v Fulham

Arsenal played poorly again as they lost 2-1 to Man Utd at Old Trafford ....the Gunners were as usual unable to compete with Man Utd and barely threatened the Man Utd goal during the match...a red card for Jack Wilshire did not help matters and a goal from Santi Cazorla with the last kick of the game was no consolation to the travelling Arsenal fans or those watching on tv ...the result meant Arsenal have had their worst ever start under Arsene Wenger , a win against Fulham is a must if Arsene Wenger wants his side to have a chance of challenging for the title this season .


Fulham can thank substitute Steve Sidwell as he rescued a point for Fulham with an 90th-minute equaliser agains Everton at Craven Cottage ...the match finished 2-2 and manager Martin Jol was honest enough to admit his side were lucky to get away with a draw against the Tofees after that clocked up 26 shots on the Fulham goal .."Everton dominated us, all we could do was try to be positive."But it doesn't mean anything in football if you don't score the goals." Fulham lie 7th in the table and a win over Arsenal would see them leapfrog the Gunners into the top 6 .

Arsenal should be too good at home for Fulham and I predict a comfortable win for Arsene Wenger's side.

Arsenal 3-1 Fulham

dont be fooled by Hams seemingly confident prediction ...this is what he had to say about our match with Norwich a few weeks ago ...

I'm going to predict a comfortable away win for Arsenal to put even more pressure on Norwich boss Chris Hughton.

Norwich 0-2 Arsenal


this will be a big test for us after losing to Man Utd ..i know we are at home but it wont be easy against Fulham .

We all make mistakes sometimes!

Did you know that Fulham have never won away at Arsenal in any competition, losing 22 and drawing four of 26 visits.

Any more comments or predictions?!

Arsenal's possible line up.

......................Mannone........................

Sagna.....Mertesacker...Koscielny...Vermaelen

...............Ramsay..........Arteta............

Walcott.................Cazorla.............Podolski

......................Giroud..............................

lets hope that record continues .... we need to bounce right back after the defeat by Man Utd .

Arsenal 1 Fulham 2

Line ups

ARSENAL
Mannone, Sagna, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Coquelin, Arteta, Cazorla, Walcott, Podolski, Giroud

Subs: Szczesny, Jenkinson, Santos, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arshavin, Chamakh.

FULHAM:
Schwarzer, Riether, Hangeland, Hughes, Riise, Dejagah, Baird, Sidwell, Richardson, Ruiz, Berbatov

Subs Stockdale, Senderos, Petric, Karagounis, Duff, Rodallega, Kacaniklic.

HT

Arsenal 2-2 Fulham

The Gunners went 2-0 up early on but the away side fought back to go in level at the break!

Another diabolical performance by Arsenal.
I would have taken the penalty at the end ,but we didn't deserve it to be honest ,never a penalty!
Giroud had a pretty decent game ,but he's not Arsenal quality ,neither Podolski and Koscielny ,but for a couple of great tackles near in the second half was shocking again. Don;t know what's wrong with the boy? Ever since he's been called up by France he been crap. Coquelin has dropped in my estimation ,i thought he looked half decent about a year and a half ago. We need to get some players fit without question. It's getting to hard to watch Arsenal this season for me ,the old ticker can;t take much more of this crap.

FT

Arsenal 3-3 Fulham
1-0 Giroud 11'
2-0 Podolski 23'
2-1 Berbatov 29'
2-2 Kacaniklic 40'
2-3 Berbatov 67'(pen)
3-3 Giroud 69'

Fulham keeper Mark Schwarzer saved a penalty from Arteta deep into injury time.

Any more comments on todays result?

It would really have been unjust had Arsenal gone on to win this game 4-3 through
that penalty decision but justice was done when Mark Schwarzer saved it to earn Fulham a deserved point.

Tomas Vermaelan is Arsenal's weak link in defence at the moment and he was deliberately targeted
by the away side but you can't blame Wenger for playing him at left back as the alternative is Andre Santos
who is useless and only interested in swapping shirts with opposing players at half time so there you have.

Dimitar Berbatov was brilliant for Martin Joll's side and at times unplayable which makes you wonder even more about him!

Next up for the Gunners is the North London derby - Any comments on this result? - Arsenal's fans are very quiet!

you have to think that Berbatov would have been a perfect addition to this arsenal team.

diabolical for an arsenal team to give away a two goal lead at home to fulham and for wenger to praise the spirit of the team must make the arsenal faithful cringe.

obviously fourth spot is still a realistic target and i am sure the 'Arsene Knows' brigade will consider 4th place another 'successful' season but results like this highlight the problems.

early on in the season i read regularly how much impact 'Bouldy' had on the backline so it is funny to see the real arsenal emerge. Koscielny and Vermaelen continue to make a mockery of the word 'defence' and Arteta had an absolute shocker.

it is unbelievable how a team can look so competent, well organised and dangerous and then just go to pot in such a short space of time.

Good post!

It is indeed incredible how they have not learnt from past games of complacency !
I can see what Wenger is talking about to a degree about the spirit of the team,but his body language tells that dressing room a story that they don't want to see! It's always better to talk about the positives rather than the negatives or at least keep your negative thoughts strictly between you and the team. If the public and the media has a problem with him venting publicly on his team ,then f*ck 'em.

at the moment i can barely turn to the sports reports to see how we are doing in a game ...when i see Arsenal 2 2 Fulham ...i just cannot believe it ...the fact we blew a last seconds penalty to win the game is typical of us ...whether or not it was `justice` does not matter . it was another 2 points lost .

It annoys me also how Arsene Wenger ...you just know he will talk about the spirit of the side and we kept on fighting during the game , all this is no good without the end product ...winning .

some of the players we have ....

Vermaelen ......good ...but having a bad spell
Kosceilny ...........goes from good to bad regularly
Diaby ...........great player , but someone coughs and he is injured for two months or more
Sagna .........playing rather average right now
Mertsacker ...........average
Jenkinson .............still not sure
Ramsey .............yet to show he is a truly great player
Walcott .............should given a proper chance in the role that he wants
Cazorla..............great start but has had an average 2 or 3 games of late .

we have no chance at the league title right now ...we just need to focus on winning a game ....

I hear you Conner ,but a bit harsh on Sagna ,he just come off of a long term injury . As far as i'm concerned he's played well since he's been back ,especially compared to some of the other player out there in that shirt right now.

I think we need to get rosicky back ,hope that Diaby gets over his woes ,get Frimpong back and Gibbs to steady the back line ,by putting Vermaelen back where he belongs. I'll take that until the january window and get a striker in.

Arsenal bottled it. Simple as that.

A massive overstatement.
To bottle it you would have to fear the opponent in the first place ,i find that a hard pill to swallow.
The best come from behind team last season are all of a sudden sh!t scared of Fulham FC ,a team that have never won at Arsenal in their entire history. Brilliant!

maybe i have been a bit harsh on Sagna ....he deserves a few more matches i guess , i also hope Scezney is back for the Tottenham game ...Mannone has been both good and bad during his stint as our No1 keeper .