Cottage POV

What a week. A tough Sun-Thurs-Sun schedule with games against both of North London’s premiere clubs sandwiched by a visit by Brighton and Hove Albion amidst a mini injury crisis and a couple of suspensions; to get 5 points is a superb return. Credit to the team and coaching staff for navigating a tricky, busy period which requires a lot of work in not a lot of time to take on 3 of the better sides the league has to offer.

Physically, Arsenal likely took the most out of the team with such long periods penned into our own half, Fulham’s Thames Barrier had to battle both Storm’s Darragh and Gunner to restrict opportunities on goal. From open play, Fulham’s set up restricted Arsenal to maybe one clearish opportunity, a late run from Declan Rice was found beautifully first time by Leandro Trossard but he snatched at his shot from an awkward spot on his weaker left foot. That’s it, that was the clear chance Arsenal had from open play. Now, when it comes to ‘Sexy Stoke’ their set piece routines drummed up a sense of anticipation, partially with all the talk of late about them but their unique pre-taken movements and frequent meetings of the first contact seemed like Arsenal’s only real route to goal.

It was inevitable that it would be a corner that would bring Arsenal back into the fixture, William Saliba surviving a VAR check for offside after Declan Rice’s corner was knocked into his path to turn in by Kai Havertz at the back post. It is without doubt, and credit to Nicolas Jover and the players, that the work on training ground is more than paying off for them. Set pieces are genuinely helping Arsenal to points, Arsenal’s xG without set pieces was 0.30 but 2.00 with them. Anyway, enough about the Sexy Stoke, let’s talk more about Fulham given this is a Cottage POV.

Fulham had a tough game but fought so impressively; whilst we’ve previously gone for the transitional counter-attacking tactical before, I’ve not seen us that suffocated for a while. It was Fulham’s first real period of possession that saw all but Adama Traore touch the ball in the build up to Raul Jimenez’s opener. A flowing 21 pass move that saw Sasa Lukic touch the ball in a high left midfield position before going all the way back to Bernd Leno to then build up down the right before Kenny Tete’s first pass of the game released Raul Jimenez who dispatched a lovely first time finish across David Raya towards the back post.

For Fulham and Marco Silva, I’m sure they’ll be disappointed that’s basically the extent of our attacking and possession play. In the 2nd half, Sander Berge released Andreas Pereira in behind the Arsenal defence but all alone he had no choice but to shoot and drew a save from David Raya. Sticking with Sander Berge, the big Norwegian was imperious in central midfield alongside Sasa Lukic, they completely shut down the central areas of the pitch and left Martin Odegaard to an anonymous performance. Berge topped the tackle charts (tied with Antonee Robinson) and provided a Joao Palhinha like shield in front of the back four and put in a performance that will have had him taken to the heart of Fulham supporters.

Sander Berge was named man of the match and quite fairly, though I wanted to shout out a few others. Bernd Leno can call himself unlucky to not have a clean sheet over the past few games with some big saves; Kenny Tete locked down Leandro Trossard and then Gabriel Martinelli. Issa Diop continued to impress in Joachim Andersen’s absence and it’s still not too late to hop away from the criticism train and get behind the big French monster. He and Calvin Bassey are an imposing pairing, Bassey – I should mention – will miss the trip to Anfield next week and will be replaced by Jorge Cuenca to make his first Premier League start, good luck Jorge!

Alex Iwobi would have wanted more touches of the ball and more opportunities in attacking areas but he put in a great shift as a makeshift right wing back; locking down the Arsenal left hand side with Kenny Tete, much like our trip to Manchester City earlier in the season.

It’s also credit to the ability of both that Antonee Robinson probably won the individual battle up against Bukayo Saka, but Saka got the better of Jedi more than any winger I can recall for a while. I’ll continue to be amazed if Robinson is a Fulham player in 25/26, though the trendy inverted full back probably isn’t on his side, if you want an out-and-out attacking full back, there’s no one better in the league.

A battling performance that got a point it deserved, it completely shut down any Arsenal attacking play and sets us up nicely for a trip to Liverpool where it’s almost a free hit after the run of results we’ve just had. Christmas is quickly approaching, blink and you’ll miss the official half way point which comes at home to Bournemouth on the 29th December. Here’s to a strong end of the season and an equally strong start to 2025. Not sure how much time I’ll have to knock these up during the Christmas period so for now, take care and up the Fulham.