Three Things We Learned from Arsenal 4 – 1 Fulham

Arsenal kicked off the new year in style with a 4-1 home win against bottom of the table dwellers, Fulham. While the score is impressive, it was a match that was not without its moments of angst for Arsenal. Let’s take a look at the Three Things We Learned as Arsenal got back to its winning ways.

Saved by a Moment of Individual Brilliance and Luck

 Granit Xhaka’s goal was a moment of relief for Arsenal fans and it came not unsurprisingly against the run of play.

Arsenal started off the match very much looking like a club looking for its identity. Playing out of the back was difficult as Fulham came in with a high press of their own and creating 1v1 situations that denied Leno a chance to play out to the fullbacks.

Combine that with a complete lack of movement from the midfield and we looked like a team lost and without a clue of how to solve the Fulham problem.

Then there was the early on “Near misses” Fulham enjoyed as they took advantage of the high line and the wingbacks being too far forward. None more promising for the visitors than Sessegnon’s early chance.

With Kolasinac too far forward, Sessegnon had space to move into as Tom Cairney looped a cross into his path. Sessegnon managed to stay onside and used his considerable pace to his advantage, getting behind the Arsenal back 3.

He opened up to curl the ball in far post but Leno’s line and not getting on the ball well enough saw his shot going wide. A missed opportunity to the visitors that would almost repeat itself again shortly thereafter as Sessegnon had another chance during another counter.

But it was our Granit Xhaka who opened the goal scoring and as showed it came completely against the run of play. With the ball deep in the Fulham final third, Xhaka casually drifted forward into space inside the 6-yard box – without a single Fulham defender picking him up.

With Iwobi getting in to make a cross, Xhaka was left to his own to volley home the well-played ball. It was brilliant on both players part for their individual efforts and lucky as how many times are our players going to be allowed to get that free inside the oppositions’ box?

Emery’s Tinkering Pays Off

Emery has been criticized over the festive period for his adjustments and having them not work. This culminated in the Liverpool tie where he the team looked markedly worse after he made his normal halftime adjustments.

Yesterday however, the substitution and formation change resulted in Arsenal fixing their core problem from the first half and grabbing a hold of the match.

In the first half in a 3-4-3, Arsenal lacked any sort of movement, creativity and fluidity resulting in Fulham keeping us pinned back in our own end and forcing Leno to spend more times punting the ball long rather than to the Center Backs as Emery prefers.

It looked like Arsenal of last season where there was no movement in front of the ball that led to passing sideways and backwards without any penetration.

At the half, Emery withdrew Mustafi putting Torreira on in the midfield. This change resulted in Emery also adjusting his formation to a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3. The net result was a more table midfield and someone always presenting themselves in the midfield as an option to receive the ball.

The midfield rotation improved in the adjusted formation and Arsenal were now better positioned to retain the ball and move forward.

It did take a while for that adjustment to take as Fulham early on got in behind. Still Arsenal were able to establish control of the match and it was through this more solid platform to play from that Lacazette scored the eventual winning goal during the 55^th minute.

MuchAdo About the Lacazette Substitution

At the 75^th minute, Unai Emery made his second substitution of the match and removed Alexandre Lacazette for Aaron Ramsey. When the board was held up, the crowd booed the decision.

It had nothing to do with the introduction of Ramsey and had everything to do with the withdrawal of Lacazette. It was head scratcher at the time as many felt that Matteo Guendouzi should be removed, not the French striker.

Guendouzi for all his potential and promise, still has issues in his play. His decision making and movement off the ball leave something to be desired. His awareness both offensively and defensively (as evidence by the Fulham goal) still need work.

Still, it was Lacazette who came off and when asked about it, Emery stood by his decision and had this to say:

“I understand the supporters, I need to do my work. Tactically we thought in that moment we needed to change for more balance.

“Above all we knew that Seri was coming on and we needed a player close to him, not to let him play easily with the ball. Ramsey can do that and also help us in attack, and he scored.

“In my career I have different moments when I made similar decisions. We need to decide with a cold mind what is the best decision.”

Sometimes we as fans lose sight of the rationale for making such a move. We are tied to the moment and in the moment, it looked like a better move to remove Guendouzi.

A manager however, no matter how passionate they may appear, still needs to keep cool and see all the situations, Emery saw a tactical move being made by Fulham and needed to counter it.

Given Lacazette’s reaction to the change, as professional as they come, it does appear that maybe the substitution was talked about beforehand – as “if they bring on Seri, we’ll need to adjust, and it will likely be you coming off” or something to that effect. Regardless, Lacazette handled himself like a pro.

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