Arsenal 2 Fulham 2
The Gunners welcomed Fulham to The Emirates for a London derby, looking to continue their 100% start to the season with a win over Marco Silva’s team. After grinding out a result at Selhurst Park, when they went down to ten men, Arsenal were looking to use that performance as a springboard to their season.
Unbeaten in thirteen London derbies, the visitors did not seem to read the script, as the North London boy wonder gifted Fulham a goal. A loose pass by Bukayo Saka set Andreas Pereira through to slot it passed Aaron Ramsdale and silence The Emirates in the first minute.
The soft underbelly of this Arsenal team is that, defensively, they always seem to have a mistake in them and that is often going to give the opposition confidence to have a go at them. Suddenly, it was reminiscent of the Highbury library at The Emirates.
Marco Silva’s side were brimming with confidence now and Raul Jimenez almost made it two-nil with an acrobatic overhead kick which had the Arsenal keeper rooted to the spot, relieved to see it go just wide of the far post.
Credit: @Arsenal
As the hosts strived for an equaliser, Trossard found Saka in the box but the winger headed his effort into the ground and it looped harmlessly over the crossbar, not troubling Arsenal old-boy Bernd Leno in goal.
In the early part of the second-half, Calvin Bassey was shown a yellow card for timewasting as he was looking to take a goal kick for The Cottagers, with over half an hour to play it seemed a pointless tactic.
At this point Mikel Arteta, dressed in his usual Bond-villain attire, was looking as animated as an inflatable air dancer that you usually see outside car showrooms. Finally settling once Tete had brought down Viera in the box for an Arsenal penalty.
Saka stepped up, sent the keeper the wrong way, and stroked the ball into the bottom corner to somewhat make up for his gift to the visitors earlier in the game. This woke up the home supporters as they felt they were going to turn this game on its head, with twenty minutes of normal time remaining.
As The Gunners streamed forward once again, Saka went down under the challenge of Bassey claiming another penalty. The referee was not interested and allowed play to continue with the Fulham player on the ground seemingly in pain with his shoulder.
Marco Silva will be livid that play was not stopped for his man to get treatment as Arsenal won the ball back just inside the Fulham half, with Viera clipping in a left-footed cross from out wide. With Bassey laying down in the box injured, playing everyone onside, Nketiah side-footed the cross passed Leno to give the hosts the lead.
Credit: @FulhamFC
The Fulham manager was booked for his complaints following the goal, with Paul Tierney being a referee who is seeming to enjoy booking players and managers for dissent more than any other official, almost like they were personally responsible for his hair loss.
Tierney seems to produce more cards than an entire season of the Penn & Teller Show and was up to his tricks once again as he showed Bassey a second yellow card for stopping Nketiah in his tracks as he looked to run through on goal.
The Cottagers were now down to ten men and their manager looked like he was ready to murder every person in The Emirates and was only one more trigger away from going all Raoul Moat on his Saturday afternoon trip to North London. Gazza was no doubt standing by with a fishing rod, crate of beer and some KFC.
If Oleksandr Zinchenko had been a Roman legionary, it would have been his part of the Testudo that would have allowed barbarians to break the lines of defence over and over again. He is to defending what Stevie Wonder would be as a lookout at a bank robbery.
The Ukrainian’s loose ball led to a corner for Fulham, from which Palhinha ghosted in to sweep the ball passed Aaron Ramsdale. There is that soft underbelly once again, spending £105m on Declan Rice seemed like putting your thumb over a crack in the Hoover Dam.
In the seventh minute of stoppage time, Fabio Viera went down out wide and immediately grabbed the ball for a free kick. The only thing that was missing was the referee actually awarding Arsenal a free kick.
Fulham took the resulting deal-ball situation, given for the hand ball, quickly and set new signing Adama Traore away on the break. The greased up speed demon ran all the way through from his own half to The Gunners’ goal, who were lucky that Ramsdale was able to make a stop to save their blushes.
It was one of those saves that oversells the keeper’s involvement, as the replay showed it hit him square in the face, but kudos to the Arsenal stopper for having a head. A lesser, decapitated keeper would not have saved that. Leno made a late fingertip stop to deny a long-range effort from Viera to ensure that his team came away with a point.
Even the late introduction of Jesus could not see the Brazilian perform any miracles for The Gunners and their perfect start to the season was over, while The Emirates stadium emptied like someone had spotted a fire. Marco Silva will be pleased with the grit and determination his side showed to get something out of this game after falling behind and going down to ten men.
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