Arsenal went to Craven Cottage today to take on Fulham in what should have been a London derby, but came away with a devastating win.
Our London rivals have well and truly been put in their place, and if they are to have any hope of surviving from relegation this term, they will need some vast improvement.
Arsenal started the match out of shape, but were troubling our rivals on the break, and the manager refused to stop shouting his team orders from his area until things clicked.
Our team just got better and better as the match continued, and in reality we should well have won by more.
Willian showed his talent despite clearly lacking match sharpness, and he could well have grabbed himself two goals, although you wouldn’t complain about three assists on your debut would you?
Our team opened the scoring inside the opening 10 minutes, with Aubameyang teeing up Granit Xhaka to shoot from the edge of the box, only to mishit, and the ball ricochet to lay stranded in front of the Brazilian playmaker, who forced Fulham’s keeper into committing to the save, which allowed Alexandre Lacazette to open the scoring into an open net.
While we didn’t manage to add to that in the first half, we ended the half very much in the driving seat, and the second-half was no change.
We continued to remain in control, transitioning into attack at speed, and we eventually added to our tally thanks a corner, with Willian finding new signing Gabriel Magalhaes, who somewhat luckily directed the ball into the net with what looked like his shoulder…
The third goal was easily our most pleasing to see, with the former Chelsea man picking out Aubameyang in space, who made all the difficult parts of the game look easy.
The forward took the ball down on his chest, and ran into the box, only to slot the ball past the defender and keeper to the keeper’s left and into the net. Game, set and match.
We didn’t start the match at our best, which is only to be accepted at this early part of the season, but how good was the second-half? Do we now have to raise our expectations for the season or do we need a little ‘it was only Fulham’ to keep us grounded?
Patrick
