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Home›Match Previews›Arsenal v Fulham; Premier League Match Preview

Arsenal v Fulham; Premier League Match Preview

By Michael Price
November 9, 2012
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Let’s just get right to it shall we. This points total is nowhere near where Arsenal fans think we should be and Arsene Wenger simply has to start Theo Walcott on Saturday. These are the two primary themes that need to be looked at as Arsenal head into their Premier League match up versus Fulham this weekend.

15 points in 10 games – it is the worst 10 game start for an Arsene Wenger led Arsenal squad. Yes, even worse than last year by 1 point. The team since the international break has been, well there really is no other way to put it – craptastic.

That word won’t be in Webster’s and it isn’t the Queen’s English,  but it perfectly captures and encapsulates every performance we’ve had since the last two week hiatus.

Sure on the surface 3 losses doesn’t look bad. But even wins have been affairs that could have gone the other way. With 1 goal versus QPR and 1 goal versus West Ham it’s hardly anything to be proud of. The team just hasn’t performed.

And as the performances have gotten worse, the confidence of the players, the manager, and the supporters has continued to nose-dive to an all time low. Again, even more than last season.

It’s not going to get any easier for Arsenal either. They simply have to get all 3 points from Fulham to right the ship. But this Fulham side aren’t going to be pushed over. They’re equal on points with Arsenal, have the same exact record (4W 3D 3L) with only GD separating the two. There’s even cause for concern in that department too as Fulham are the third best team right now at putting the ball into the net.

If Arsenal are going to get something they have to move beyond their fragile state of mind and come out with a 90 minute display like the 15 minutes that saw them take a 2-0 lead over Schalke in the mid-week. It has to be an effort like that and sustained for all of 90 minutes.

Fulham will hurt Arsenal if they don’t. Fulham effectively use their attack by exploiting the width of the field and the strength of their forwards. Should Arsenal make many of the stupid errors we’ve seen in the last few weeks. If we make those mistakes and Ruiz has the time to get the ball to Dimitar Berbatov it could be a long day for the Arsenal defense.

But with an attack the relies heavily on their wings, it can be exploited by pace down the side, which is why Theo Walcott has to start. Forget for a moment the whole contract squabble. Theo is now doing what a lot of people were crying for when they were riding his case – he is using more than just his speed to get results. His finishing is getting more and more consistent and he is often times getting into the right spots with  his overall movement and style of play.

Speed, scoring, and footballing brains are turning Theo into a complete player. He isn’t the finished product yet. That will likely come with age and maturity but he is arriving and he can give Fulham fits.

Fulham as good as they’ve been scoring have also been conceding a lot. They don’t seem to handle being off the ball that well and in such they’ve allowed opponents to get at them. This is especially prevalent on the road. They have to have the ball for them to be effective. Something that seems to play into Arsenal’s style of play.

Martin Jol knows this and it what he is drilling into the heads of his players. He knows his team at the Emirates likely won’t see much of the ball. His version of the 4-4-2 will have two holding midfielders that will provide cover to the defense. Arsenal will have to be patient as they will likely be against a strong defensive setup when they have possession. But you have to exploit this lack of ability off the ball that Fulham display. Don’t do it and this could be 0-0 or worse.

And when Fulham do have the ball, Arsenal need to get back and use the counter attack with pace. No, slowing down play. We’ve done it too often this season we’re we’ve gotten the ball back with numbers going back, we slow down and are suddenly faced with 10 men behind the ball.

Get it to Theo or Podolski with Giroud attacking the CBs. Give Giroud good crosses to attack and he will get his chances and likely bury them. His goal against Schalke was a perfect example of his movement to get into space and the strength of his headers – when he gets good service. We simply haven’t played to his strengths and we need to.

Fulham have never beaten Arsenal away. Records like these versus Arsenal seem to be disappearing regularly this season. Now is not the time to let another record go by the waist-side. Arsenal need 3 points anything else is failure.

How the match should play out?
Arsenal haven’t displayed much in the way of exciting play lately, but the need to come out absolutely flying.  While you need to be patient with visitors who are likely to employ a more defensive set up you simply can’t waste time. The longer Arsenal go without directly attacking the Fulham goal, the more likely it is that the fans will get uneasy. Atmosphere is as important as anything here and the players need to create that by flair and attack. No more sitting around. Fulham will try and get the ball to Berbatov who has a propensity for scoring against Arsenal. The will look to attack whomever sets up in the middle. Per Mertesacker has to have command of the defensive line and be aware of where Berbatov is at all times. Whomever, is playing in the DM role needs to make sure the traffic from Ruiz to the striker is cut off. Deny Fulham the pass to Berbatov and you can effectively shut the visitors down.

Players to Watch:
Arsenal. Theo Walcott. Simply put he has been Arsenal’s biggest threat in these last few weeks. He has to play. He has to start.

Fulham. Dimitar Berbatov. The one thing Fergie would never do is sell to Arsenal (unlike Arsenal selling to United). This is one guy I wish would’ve made part of the Van Persie deal. If he is given service he will score. Sort of like the Dutchman but with a dodgy hair cut.

Projected Lineups:

Injuries and Suspensions:
Arsenal:  Wilshere (suspended -1) Gervinho (ankle), Gibbs (thigh), Diaby (thigh), Fabianski (back), Rosicky (hamstring).

Fulham: Davies (hip)

Leading Scorers:
Arsenal:  Gervinho 3, Cazorla 3

Fulham:  4 players with 3

Assists Leader:
Arsenal: Cazorla 2, Podolski 2

Fulham: Ruiz 4

Last Meeting (EPL):
Arsenal: 1

Fulham: 2

Goals For:
Arsenal (home): 2

Fulham (away): 1.8

Goals Against:
Arsenal (home): 0.8

Fulham: (away): 2.4

Last Five:
Arsenal: LWLWL

Fulham: DDWDL

Goal Difference:
Arsenal: 9

Fulham: -5

Match Official:
Referee: Andre Marriner. Matches 6, R0 Y21.

Broadcast Information:
US: ESPN2/ESPN3 1000AM EST

UK: ??????? 15.00 BST

YAMA Prediction:

Arsenal: 2

Fulham: 1

The Last Word:

We quickly want to thank you for your response our “ambition” piece from yesterday. We got some tremendous feedback. We’d love not to have to be critical of Arsenal. But the fact remains serious questions have to be asked – one of the more pressing we felt was the club’s ambitions.

One of the critical comments we got, was why we focused on the 4th place is a trophy line. We were told that they did say the firt priorities are winning the League and the Champion’s League and then qualifying for the Champion’s league above the FA and League cups respectively.

Our piece was about the overall mentality of the club that accepts looking at fourth place as some sort of prize won. There is no prize won. Okay, you qualify for a lucrative tournament.  That’s all well and good but it isn’t winning and to accept it as such is part and parcel of low ambitions at the club.

We will continue to look at the issues at Arsenal. Our next piece will look at leadership at the club and the perception that it doesn’t seem to be all that important. And like our ambition piece, we will look at it from all perspective not just from one angle.

Until then, Stay Goonerish!!

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7 comments

  1. joshuad 13 November, 2012 at 17:13 Log in to Reply

    about the game, arsenal needed leadership; somebody who knows how guide the team to win tough games. fulham gave arsenal all they could handle and took advantage of some favorable match ups. starting with the dm, arteta had another tough match against a good player. ruiz may not receive the fanfair of other top players but he’s good enough to be a hand-full for anyone. he gave mikey problems, including a tackle that led to a pk for fulham. someone else needed to fill the leaership gap that arteta typically provides. how about the captain?

    next, the goals. on fulham’s first, sure berbatov might have gotten away with a little push on sagna, but the ball was four yards from goal and dead center. the keeper has got to claim that; full stop. it was an easy chance that fulham shouldn’t have had. i would have been upset with my keeper if he did that. on fulham’s second, berba ran down a channel and crossed to a wide open kid (don’t know his name) who had a free header; reminiscent of joleon lescott’s goal when arsenal played city a few weeks ago. a professional footballer will finish that 85% of the time. it’s a shame that arsenal allowed fulham’s best player, a center forward, to be defended on the endline by a striker turned winger. you’ve got to have a defender on berbatov. for the third, arteta turned the wrong way right into bryan ruiz and had to pull him down in the area. i really like mikey but he didn’t have a good day.

    for the good, giroud clearly had a fine afternoon. i really liked the shot he took early in the game that skied over the bar. sure, he had other options, but i like a center forward with the audacity to do that. he should continue to progress. more controversial, theo is looking more like a 90k a week type of player. his service was excellent throughout the game, including the peaches he placed on giroud’s head for the goals. likewise, he looked to be a legit goal threat. i hope he signs an extension. it would be a shame to lose him for free after paying so much for a 16 year old with potential right when he begans to show that potential.

    arsenal dropped two points. they’re already well off the pace. kieran gibbs can’t come back soon enough. if he returns in his pre-injury form, his inclusion will make a telling difference both in attack and defense, especially defense. we’ll see.

  2. stag133 10 November, 2012 at 17:06 Log in to Reply

    given an absolute GIFT of a penalty at the death…
    Arsenal still manage to feck it up…
    why exactly Arteta is taking a penalty? who the hell knows.
    but 3-3 sums up the match nicely, as we certainly did NOT deserve to win today.

  3. stag133 10 November, 2012 at 16:25 Log in to Reply

    so people are commenting on Twitter, not on the site…. and there is no way to see those comments on the site, without twitter?

    what’s the point of the site… why not just Twit?

    meanwhile… Arsenal SUCKING again today…. another horrific defensive display…
    you can bring in any defensive coach you want…. bring in 3 of them…
    if you can’t play defense ON THE PITCH… what does it matter?

    NOTHING will occur, regardless if we managed to lose… (just let in our 3rd consecutive).
    so… what is the point?
    What is the point of being an Arsenal supporter?

    • vibe4arsenal 10 November, 2012 at 16:55 Log in to Reply

      Testing.

      • vibe4arsenal 10 November, 2012 at 16:56 Log in to Reply

        Hey, that one stuck.

        Eh.

  4. highburyterracesteve 10 November, 2012 at 08:47 Log in to Reply

    Painful as it is to say, I cannot disagree with Stag here. As I’ve said several times before, I believe Theo will go to another team, most likely in January. I also, however, believe we are grasping at straws thinking that keeping him is the answer to our problems. We need goals, and hopefully we will have a combination of replacements in January along with injured players coming back who will be able to combine and create enough goals to create enough points to retain our CL qualification. Certainly, as we’ve seen, we shall not be competing for the league title, even though the level of the three teams who will (Chelsea, United and City) seems pretty poor.

    As for today’s match, I will not get to watch it. This pains me, but so it goes. Frankly, I hope the team turns it around and finds something which might help it going forward. On paper, it appears that we have a very manageable schedule from here to the New Year, but the same could have been said about our fixtures in October. The team needs fortune in the form of goals (which should lead to points) along with no new injuries. With a disgruntled home support, these matches only get tougher and the opportunities for teams playing us at the Emirates grows with time. Here’s to 3 points gained along with a boost of confidence going forward.

    On the topic of the piece about Arsenal and aiming for average, I’d like to add my own, even if I’m a day late. I only see the 4 comments here on the site so I guess the remainder are coming from Twitter. Looking at the trail of DAG’s most recent (at the bottom of this page), it appears that he’s got plenty to say about ownership structure and 2014 (FFP) and the like, and it appears he’s in a very negative state about the direction of the club. Who isn’t? It’s depressing, but it is what it is. We are choosing not to compete (financially) in the short term with the hope that it will pay off in the long-term. I won’t rehash my arguments, but clearly, ownership is happy with management and nothing of real significance will be changing anytime soon. There may be a trickle down effect to the effort of the players and certainly the quality drops year after year when players are sold at one (financial) level and replaced at another. Even more certainly, supporters are not happy….

    But back to the piece itself….When I saw it–and then tried to read it, I was flabbergasted. I copied it into a word processing program to count the words (1258) and asked my wife, a college English professor, to read it. She found it painful–not the subject matter, but the writing–and she’s “nice”– she has to be to deal with me(!) As the DAG himself might say–let’s not beat around the bush, let’s get right to the point, etc., etc. This was a LONG piece (“haha,” says the pot….) clearly not edited (nor proof-read) and really just a moan (with no real solutions proposed) about poor results. We agreed that it should not be “graded” but rather handed back to the author with the very challenge he’s putting out to the club. Please, reread the Bruce Lee quote, or some of your own, if not the piece in its entirety, and see if you can understand the irony of it all….. (My wife, btw, would be horrified to know that I’m invoking her reaction here…..)

    I’ve got additional arguments about the piece–for example, how do we know if the players aren’t giving their all or that periods when they do (the 15 minutes from the Schalke match referenced today) coincide with goals? To me this seems an exceptionally lazy argument. There are other elements where I have disagreement AND agreement, but I imagine that if you cannot be bothered to read your own pieces (and correct them) you will not be reading my comments, which maybe are also too long in this era of <140. I actually agree with the heart of your argument about the club, and likewise, here on the site, I believe we've got a measure of quality and if we focused our efforts maybe we'd get better results. Oh well, I still appreciate having a place to write them. Cheers. Up the Arse. Stay Goonerish, Go on, etc., etc…..

  5. stag133 10 November, 2012 at 05:05 Log in to Reply

    and if we lose, or drop points against Fulham…? so what?
    what will it mean? will someone lose their job at the club? will it force anything to change?
    it certainly won’t make Theo more likely to sign…
    he’ll likely be sold off in January, because he’d be crazy to sign up for more of this shit.

    I actually hope we sell him to Liverpool, or another good English club…
    He should have his shot at winning trophies too, if Arsenal FC are only interested in
    that “4th place is a trophy” thing.

    2-2 draw?
    we aren’t competing for anything anyway, so long term? doesn’t matter.

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