The real reasons Arsenal failed to beat Fulham

By 1970s Gooner

I would take what Mikel Arteta said in his post match conference with a pinch of salt. Yes it was a very marginal decision that robed us of all three points at the death (I vowed never to celebrate an Arsenal goal as important as that would have been until I see the replay and the lines drawn by VAR). 

But we should never have reached that point really. Nor should we accept the explanation that we had total domination but they happened to score a goal... We know why they scored that goal and we will come to that later. 

Yes they played a low defensive line and the fact is we struggled to break that. But nearly all mid table and lower down teams play a low block and are well organised. We should really have developed a plan of how to go about beating them. 

You can say corner kicks is that plan B but surely you can't rely on set pieces to get you a goal. It was very evident against Fulham and in the last game against Man Utd that we didn't create much from open play. It wasn't as though we had a bagful of chances, like we had against Villa at home last season, but failed to convert them and then duly paid for it.

Arsenal's Xg against Fulham was a high 2.0 BUT without set pieces the Xg was...0.3!! 

Against Man Utd the without set pieces Xg was 0.48. 

This shows the degree of reliance on one way of getting a goal which however cannot be replicated consistently for the rest of the season especially when opponents eventually work out how to stop it happening.

One of the main reasons we failed to convert our dominance into goals is that a number of players have been off form recently. 

Havertz has been below par in the last few games. He didn't have that spark in his step and looked sluggish. Under normal circumstances he would have converted that chance from inside the box in the second half but didn't hit it properly and dragged it wide. 

We have been calling for him to be rested but Mikel probably realises that we don't have a viable alternative for this position as Gabriel Jesus seems to be not at the level required. That is why it is quite imperative we get a number 9 that can provide competition and more importantly the goals.

Martin Odegaard also did not look at his best. He wasn't as sharp in his passing and didn't run the game as per usual. Arteta took him off at 78 min and brought on Nawneri. I hope he wasn't injured as he had a strong tackle on him a few minutes before. Nothing was mentioned in the presser afterwards so lets hope he came through alright but taking off your best creative player when you need a goal looks strange to me.

Trossard, again proved that when he starts games he cannot produce what he usually does when he comes on as a sub. 

Martinelli also has been below his best for much of the season. This creates two problems. One is that we lack meaningful penetration from that flank which makes the team unbalanced. 

Secondly, and as result, the opponent's coach sets up his team to give more emphasis in stopping Saka and Odegaard on the other flank. Fulham, as we  saw on Sunday, had dropped more than one midfield player on that side deeper as well as their left back which minimised the spaces for Odegaard and Saka to operate in.

Arsenal's defence also looked unbalanced in the central positions. And by that I mean that Kiwior is not up to the level of what a defender playing for Arsenal should be. He never fails to repeat himself in making a mistake that leads to a goal.

His positioning for the goal that Jimenez scored could not have been worse. The long ball from Fulham's defence was picked up by Jimenez with ease because Kiwior followed him with a distance of a few meters back rather than sticking close. Jimenez laid the ball back to his right back and raced past Kiwior on the inside channel to receive the return ball. Kiwior who was running on the outside was thus left behind....

Kind of but not exactly the same with the second goal we conceded against Liverpool at the Emirates. There he found himself in no man's land and left the space for Salah to race on and score.

The second goal conceded against Bournemouth...you can guess who made that weak back pass to Raya which resulted in giving away a penalty that was converted.

Last season in the CL against Bayern we were cruising with a superb goal by Saka and we were running the game when his indecisiveness lets Sane go past him who lays the ball to Gnarby who duly scores. We ended up drawing 2-2.

In last season's defeat at Fulham, again he was not positioned correctly to be able to mark the on coming scorer on the left hand side, de Cordova Reid, who made it 2-1.

Well, if you combine all the above and let them loose during a game then we shouldn't really be surprised by the outcome.