Aug 23
Match Report: Fulham 1-0 Arsenal
Craven Cottage has traditionally been a successful hunting ground for Wenger’s Arsenal, but a Fulham side boasting several new signings looked to bounce back from their opening day defeat by Hull.
Arsenal on the other hand, looked to continue from where they left off against West Brom with another 3 points hopefully going their way.
Fulham Starting XI
Schwarzer
Paintsil – Hughes – Hangeland – Kallio
Bullard - Davies - Murphy – Gera
Zamora – Seol
Arsenal Starting XI
Almunia
Sagna – Toure - Gallas- Clichy
Walcott – Eboue – Denilson – Nasri
Adebayor – van Persie
First Half
A scrappy opening few minutes yielded little sight of goal for each side, with possession rarely retained by either team. Walcott’s pace for Arsenal and Gera’s smart passing for Fulham helped create a few half-openings, but neither ‘keeper was troubled early on. The first decent chance came from good link-up play by the Gunners front two, van Persie feeding Adebayor who curled a shot past the far post.
Sagna produced a fine saving tackle to prevent Zamora going clean through, and minutes later tore down the right wing with Walcott. Theo’s cross met Nasri, who pulled the ball back only for van Persie to fire wide. This miss was to prove costly when a minute later Hangeland lost Gallas from the corner and lunged past the Arsenal captain to put Fulham one up.
Goal – Fulham 1-0: Hangeland (20)
Adebayor hung in the air to head a Sagna cross against the upright with Schwarzer beaten, but the momentary rally by Arsenal after the goal failed to sufficiently test the big Australian.
The first half held little in the way of excitement from an Arsenal point of view, with Murphy and Bullard seemingly a step ahead of Denilson and Eboue in the middle of the park. With Wenger’s side seemingly playing without their usual passing radar Arsenal went in trailing at half-time and in dire need of some inspiration.
Second Half
Arsenal started the second 45 in a marginally more positive fashion, Clichy and Nasri combined better than they had done in the first half to set up Adebayor, only for the Togo international’s shot to thunder into Hangeland. The poor nature of possession soon returned, Denilson spurning a chance to set up a break by overhitting a pass under little pressure.
Fulham’s fluid midfield play continued to put the Gunners to shame, one symptomatic move creating a chance that Zamora thundered narrowly over. Arsenal had still failed to test the Fulham ‘keeper by the time Zamora next had a hand in a chance for the home side, Davies smashing the ball high and wide from the new signing’s layoff.
After 66 minutes Wenger brought on Bendtner for Walcott with the Dane going up front, van Persie dropping to midfield and Eboue moving to the right wing. This began paying dividends two minutes later when the Dutchman found space 20 yards out to drive at goal, but his powerful strike fizzed wide of the post. Though promising, over 2/3 of the game had passed without a single Arsenal shot on target.
Song came on for toure on 77 minutes, but the Cameroon international slotted straight into the defence rather than in a more positive midfield role. It took almost another 10 minutes for a Schwarzer save, but Adebayor’s looping shot was a comfortable catch.
As 90 minutes approached the Gunners found no new invention, and at the final whistle had no more from the game than they deserved. A truly disappointing performance where Arsenal were not fought out the game, they were outclassed in the disciplines they usually call their own – simple passing and running that Fulham displayed with more confidence and skill.
Player Ratings
Almunia – 5: Had almost nothing to do, could have done little for the Fulham goal, but had barely a save to make.
Sagna – 7: Confident in the tackle and moved quickly down the right, unfortunately had little to exchange with in central midfield when pushing forwards.
Toure – 6: Made one or two good tackles, still looked a degree short of full fitness.
Gallas – 5: Certainly at fault for the Fulham goal, should have attacked the corner but was left trailing. Still not as dominant as he needs to be in defence.
Clichy – 6: Good in defence, but should have done better with several opportunities to cross.
Walcott – 5: Largely ineffectual, but more down to a lack of service than a lack of effort.
Eboue – 5: Raised his performance in the second half, but raised it to an insufficient level for an Arsenal first-team player. Slack in possession and still embarassing when going to ground under little pressure.
Denilson – 4: A dire performance by the Brazilian, shocking passing and made few challenges. He has shown some serious promise recently, but this goes as a reminder that he is far from the finished article.
Nasri – 5: Poor in the first half, decent in the second, he showed Wenger’s surprise over his rapid adjustment to English football to be justified. Clearly has agility and skill in abundance, but will take some time to settle in.
Adebayor – 6: Had the best of the chances, but also some of the least possession. Looked dejected late-on when enthusiasm would have been more useful, his header against the post was as close as Arsenal came.
van Persie – 6: Not a good game by his standards, but in fairness had some woeful service.
Substitutes:
Bendtner – 5: Added very little when he came on, was clearly hungry for the ball but miscontrolled it when it reached him
Song – 6: Was actually controlled at the back when Fulham looked to break after Arsenal pressure, saved a five-on-two situation well at the death.
Gooner Talk’s Man of the Match: Bacary Sagna: In what was a fairly miserable showing by Arsenal the French defender made a few crucial interceptions and probably passed better than alot of his teammates today.
Tags: Adebayor, arsenal, fulham, Gallas, hangeland, paintsil, toure, van Persie
every time walcott has the ball he looks like he panics and just gives a crap pass, how much time to you give him ???? does he need a whole season in the starting 11 for AW to make up his mind?
We will be champions this season and you will all be wrong!!!
Yes we had a poor game, but look at all the other teams that struggled, it's normal after the international break and after all the tournements during the summer. But all will come good in time!!! At the end of the season all you useless shites will come here and talk about how Arsenal are the best!!! People are even that stupid to praise Eboué who is misplaced and doesn't read the game properly to function there, instead you slate Denilson who always looked out of position because of Eboué who was all over the place. We need a middle pair that work together, no exactly where the other is on the field and work together defending and attacking. The players looked tired, Adebayor, van Persie! I am absolutely positive that we are winning the title and at least one other prize!!! Come on Arsenal!!! We love you Arsenal!!
how have we gone from invisibles 4 years ago to shitters now…wenger really has lost it in my
honest opinion….he relies on cheap shitty youth far too much…for every clichy and sagna for
peanut money theres an eboue..denilson..senderos etc. where has all the money gone…
this move to the emirates was suppose to make us able to compete financially with chelski
and man-cunts….clearly not (Well maybe when all of us on this forum are dead in 100 years
when we pay it off…so pissed off wenger is getting more deluded by each passing game
Moushin wish I was as positive as that. We are not the only team to have palyers away for international duty. Also Eboue was bad, but there were worst players…..and did you now Denilson was the onl player not to go on international duty
opps..ment invinsibles
Also Moushin, explain Denilsons poor passing and his lack of control when he had players around him
I really dont know what to say!! we played bad , poor performance from all Arsenal players. Maybe its ery soon to judge on the team but with this performance Arsenal cant be at all a competitor team specialy if chelsea reached an agreement with real for robinho. Wenger must know that we really need 2 players a striker ( this stupid , greedy , arrogant , asshole adebayor shoot twice on goal during the 95min!!!!!!!!????) those 2 game againt west brom and fulham showed that this stupid is nothing without Cesc , Flamini who we really miss him and i dont know why wenger didnt make the maximum to let him stay as he did with his stupid adebayor!! and with a striker we really need an experienced midfielder not of course
Inler
Oh Dear!!!
Beaten by a team that was beaten by Hull… This is very worrying.
The sad part is that we lost because we played really badly and not because we didnt take our chances.
By far the worst midfield performance ive ever seen.
Gallas without a doubt cost us the game with his dreadful defending,
while Walcott couldve made more of an impact sitting in the stands.
But if you want to be optimistic, i guess you can blame it on the majority of our players being in international duties during the week.
It's time to forget this match. Fabreas, Senderos will be recover on Wednesday, we will buy a new midfielder on next week, and Rosicky will be okay within 2 weeks.
I can't explain Denilson's poor passing but I accept him having a bad game. What I don't accept is that all the players had a poor game. We lacked desire and believe. One reason is the busy summer and pre season we had, but this can't be an excuse. Even than we need to produce at least an inspired performance. Denilson had untill now played some very good games. We need to stay behind the team! Liverpool won by luck today they had two decisions in favour of them!! We can praise them for their fighting spirit which we lacked today but still I would never trade our style of football for theirs… So get behind the team and support them!!!
On the topic of Denilson, has no one learned from what happened with Song two years ago?
Nasri was more than decent in the 2nd half
Iam fulham fan in peace here …..i dont understand some of you who think Arsenal should win every game …..you were outplayed and outclassed most of the game by ALMIGHTY FULHAAAAAAAAM
Roys fulham are here to stay
as 4 u , i awlays loved arsenal style of play , but it was our turn today ,,,,good luck and plz beat the chelski
ok i slept on it caught 40 winks,i think there are problems financially inside arsenal on a scale even the press couldnt imagine ,i had a bad feeling before this game and this season ,i knew this could happen wenger knew too but he couldnt buy a real centre half and is struggling to get the board to buy him a midfielder!
Clichy desperately needs to work on his defending and can we put Djourou back into the side now that we’ve seen how awful Gallas and Kolo are? I seriously can’t understand why Toure is always played as soon as he returns from injury even though his performances are horrible. Senderos and Djourou are better defenders than Gallas and Toure.
If Song and Djourou don’t get a start against Twente, they might as well hand in a transfer request because they’ll never get their chance if they don’t get it now.
What’s more is that we’re gonna have to rely on Walcott and Eboue to play RM until Rosicky comes back, and I suspect Rosicky won’t be playing full matches ’till the end of September. What if Nasri or Rosicky get injured just before a match against Chelsea or Man U? Can we honestly rely on Walcott and Eboue?
Adebayor and Van Persie scored on international duty playing with poorer strikers against tougher opposition and yet they can’t score playing with each other against Fulham. In fairness Adebayor was ok today.
I think we’ll bounce back from this but we’re gonna need to beat Twente by three or four goals to really get the confidence back for the players and for the fans to forget this performance. Fabregas will be a welcome return and maybe with Vela, we can actually have a proper impact sub (apart from Theo).
And as for the people who are saying it’s only one game, I can see where you’re coming from but we were poor against Twente and West Brom as well so you can’t say this hasn’t been coming.
Without Flamini our team is so so poor off the ball. It was ok when we had Gilberto ‘cos he could read the passes and intercept them but now we don’t have either and so we’re rubbish at winning the ball back. We have one player who can fulfill this job and that’s Song, but Wenger refuses to play him at CM. Diaby’s always injured and I’m not convinced he has the positional sense to be a DM and he definately doesn’t have the energy that Flamini had.
Fabregas' dad…agree 110% with you, spot on. diaby always injured whilst denilson and eboue clearly aren't up to much, definately not title winning centre mids. fabregas is our only creative CM apart from perhaps merida who is still too young and not good enough. the problem is that wenger keeps waiting for these players to furfill potential every season but as soon as they do they leave for clubs who aren't solely depending on potential from youngsters. as soon as players like flamini and hleb become good they walk away..im worried fabregas will do the same soon if wenger doesn't get his act together and sort it out.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PFdMqEH7QUw
The best result ever. Just what the team , AW and the rest of management needed
maybe now they will realise that we need to start behaving like the big club that we claim to
be. We did not lose because we played badly – we lost because our best just wasnt good
enough. The team did not play badly , they just could not get the ball through to the forwards.
Its a wakeup call, a boot up the &^*£. Reality has always been such. What did we have in
midfield, Denilson – he needs learn to pass. Eboue “the dead ball
specialist” pass him the ball and the move dies. AW wouldnt have done better playing
cesc on crutches. We all love Theo, but lets face it he is young and his first touch still lets
him down.
Its a sad day when THIS Eboue is first choice for a position. What happened to the original.
the one of 2 seasons ago – the guy who didnt spend half his time rolling on the grass.
Chris and Joe Todd now look at every ones comments now isn't it amazing how one result can change
peoples mind but the difference with me i was saying this will happen before the season started
but then i got told I'm a fake supporter and I'm negative.please u guys just try and listen to me next time
Wenger has lost the plot. He could never make a substitution and he's proved it again. How long does he need to sit there and watch us losing before he pulls his finger out? With Denilson and Eboue in the middle we could have played till next week and not scored. I thought it was a dead cert Song would come on at half time for Denilson or Eboue. No, Wenger has better ideas, brings him on for Toure with 13 minutes left. Song was out best player even if he was only on there for 13 minutes. We're still losing and he doesn't make that last change! We have a player on the bench in Wilshere who can score and create and he does not bring him on. What the f*** are you doing you stubborn twat. Wenger likes to punish himself for his own mistakes and therefore does not try to fix things, and admit he was wrong.
Hansen was just saying on MOTD, how can Arsenal play better than they did last season as they were breath taking….his answer new personel, he had a dig at our bench being poor….. i dont particularly .like hansen because he always wrights us off but he has a point. Not having Hleb and Fabregas makes us hal the team we were last season
I dont particularly like doing this, but most people on this blog scream players names like Villa and Barry and I just tink its silly cause we have to be realistic. But I have to say we need to sign Alonso and Inler and possibly another attacking wide player, Walcott is not the answer
The critiscism of Wenger is very harsh. United without Ronaldo look very poor as do Arsenal without Fabregas. Also the crticism of Denilson is extremly harsh he has started virtually every game from Barnet to Fulham and looked jaded, however against WBA he ran the midfield.
The one criticism i have is by hyping up youngsters such as Merida and Wilshere and then not giving them their chance when there are injuries and continually persisting with Eboue in central midfield.
Can't wait till we beat Twente and then Newcastle (i think) then everyone will be pleased with our squad again.
what else can Walcot do over than run with the ball
van persie thinks hes Marco van Basten
Wtfux, Vela and Bendtner upfront. What the fuck is wrong with Fulham there like fucking animals.
INLER FABREGAS NASRI will make a great midfeild I'm not to sure about the right side and i dont
think Walcott is not the answer it some times seams hes more worried about his looks
we were like crap,no aggressiveness ,no nothing,just sheet.we can never win a thing like this,we need playr
we need players with personality,like henry,vieira,and others,we have in our team just pussy's.
Well that was pants wernt it??
All be prepard for a season of inconsistency ppl..
100% true
what is worst is that is the first times from a long time when we lose whit out scoring ,so that means that not only we have a weak defence but olso a weak atack,so we are going on the rong way clearelym,because we want to make bussines and to sell players with big pricess and all the fucking fat leadesrs to make a lt off money,and you all to buy tikets and all the rest.fuck all is am sick off it.we will not win not even hafe off the aaway games ,and not even 60% from the home games.remember that.
Do you know that our best players have left the team? Do you know that our much admired 4
4-5-1 midfield has left the team?
We cannot keep Walcott/Denilson/Eboue/Van Persie.
These 4 are not midfielders: they cannot pass nor hold nor
have the composure to create and urgency to defend. These cheap mugs are all for sale
or direct swap candidates.
Let's say Nasri plays second striker (second playmaker), So Vela comes on the left
So we're missing:
1. Replacement for Fabregas when injured ($40mill)
2. Right Winger replacement for Walcott/Eboue
3. Defensive Midfielder ($40mill)
Total Dammage : $80mill+
If we don't sign at least two of these three we will witness an implosion at arsenal and possibly
Relegation .
ARSENE KNOWS that we're in for the biggest struggle and humiliations this season and
finally RELEGATION
Team Score: 4 (RELEGATION quality )
Almunia – 4: One big Mistake was enough
Sagna – 6: Trying hard to attack for the team after witnessing our midfield meltdown,
which also led to some mistakes at the back. played with heart and leadership
Clichy – 6: Similar to Sagna tried hard for the team to bomb forward to counterbalance
the lack of midfield . played with leadership
Walcott – 4: Him and Eboue in our 3 men midfield is a disaster. Wenger show me the
money
Eboue – 4: Played out of position ha ha. Can't really defend nor build up an attack.
Denilson – 4: Cannot defend (no urgency) , cannot attack (passing, penetration,
composure, vision)
Nasri – 5: Not enough penetration, not enough vision, sticks too much to the wing should
roam around a little bit more instead of kissing the line for 90minutes
Adebayor – 5: No goals, no assists
van Persie – 3: Wasteful, no assists. Hleb is the the better half of Van Persie as the
former never shoots but produces assists by the dozen . RvP cannot play in the
whole- sell him to Juventus
Bendtner – 4: Cannot play together with Adebayor, but I knew that already but does
Wenger?
Song – 6: He, Ramsey and Wilshere should have been replacing Eboue, and Denilson
and Walcott
Toure – 4: No leadership
Gallas – 4: No leadership
i must say if wenger leaves i really don't know who should replace him but if i had a favourite
i choice it would be Slavin Bilic top manager or Gus Hidick or Frank Rijkaard at least they fucking spend. but lets wait till the end of the season
by end of the season it wil probs be too late…man im just praying for a top 4 finish again. definately not paying those fat-cat asshole board members at arsenal extortionate prices, fuck them. we pay soo much fucking hard-earnt money to arsenal the least they could do is show some ambition and spend for
than 750,000 on players…this would be the time to spend 20million ish on a decent cover for fabregas when hes injured, diego from werder bremen is brilliant. watched him many times is very good…but thats just a dream for arsenal supporters i suppose
Walcot needs a big kick up his backside he needs to toughen up i remember a couple of
weeks ago in one of arsenals friendly's he accidentally got poked in his face and he went down
like a car hit him and he stay down to and even the commentator was laughing.
i woud love Alexandre pato as a striker
Cyril, judging by the use of $ I can see you are from the US, we are not going to get relegated after one poor game, chill out, most stupid thing I have heard. Go back to watching the NFL
I think in all fairness every team has its weak games. We had a poor poor evening & in fairness Fulham took full advantage being their first home game and coming off a defeat the previous week. they were out for blood and Arsenal are still half asleep. We all know the Theo's and the Ade's and the Van Persie's can perform better but its just been all rather sluggish for the most part with only brief hints of the brilliance there known for shining through from time to time.
I think everyone's just jumping the gun on this. More of the top teams will lose points this season than any in recent memory. Many more teams than fans of the Top 4 clubs would care to admit are going to be in contention for their spot in Europe. Hopefully Arsenal realise this as the kick up the rear they needed. We'll see how strong the team really is over the course of Fc Twente and Newcastle games. For the moment we should trust in the squad to do something about. Eboues playing better than ever despite all the criticism the fans give him; Denilson can be much much better on the day and Walcott wel.. that Fulham game sure was a stinger. You'd hope they get the message that they have to get focused and to do it sharpish.
The end of the seasons table will look like this..
CHELSEA
LIVERPOOL
MAN UTD
ARSENAL
Remember i said that people..
I actually MISS THIS ALOT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE4wf-KbyTU
can wenger take us any futher ?
guess what guys this is the latest Mr wenger says news signings are not the solution. Now i think this
guy is really gone mad, this is why i said he is the most stubborn manager in Europe I'm starting to
think hes doing this on purpose saw us fans can turn against him saw he can leave call it a easy way out.
his thinking just doesn't make sense these days. the mans gone from a genius to a complete clown.
wen rosicky is fit he can always play in CM as he does for his country. bt he just needs to stay fit thats the prob! is it just me or do u guys also feel we need a new goalie? for me almunia is ok but wen he does get injured wat then? fabianski just isnt good enuf yet. 3 more signings r needed. a DM, attacking mis and new goalie! but if that fails then just get new coach
i mean attacking mid
why is wenger un-doing all that he has done for this club. he really was a genius but his decision making is getting worse and worse each season. gallas for captain? hes crap now and has NO leadership at all. and no new signings who are older than 21 apart from silvestre who is just an injury prone united reject. we 'replaced' hleb with nasri who will not have the same impact until he adapts…no replacement for flamini apart from a 17year old welsh kid who might be good in years to come but not now. fuck sakes wenger what are u doing we all admired everything that u did but your just un-doing all my (and some of our) trust in you
Chelsea bought Deco for 8Million (= Ramsey+Coquelin+Bishoff+Silvestre)
Deco is a match winner that pulling Chelsea top of the table after two matches
Ramey+Coquelin+Bishoff+Silvestre cannot replace Fabregas when injured let alone
win you a match …sack WENGER
Wenger knew perfectly he was gambling by bringing in no immediate replacement for Hleb/Flamini/Diarra/Gilberto
His gambling on internal promotion Denilson/Eboue/Walcott/Diaby is now entirely his folly and his responsability. These four are useless
Wenger needs to resign and move to the championship side to start a feeder club, not screw around at Arsenal
Man United look like they’ve won the league.