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Zero margin for error for Arsenal at Craven Cottage today

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo I said it in the aftermath of Friday’s press conferences, that Fulham feels a little more difficult than when we looked at this run of games pre-international break, but I feel it even more this morning:

This is going to be hard today.

Fulham are decent at home. Four wins, one draw and two defeats to Villa and that weird one against Wolves. It was weird because Wolves scored four goals from five shots on target, had way less possession, way less attempts on goal, their xG for four goals was as low as 1.3 which tells me they wonder-struck their way to a bit of an outlier result.

At Home Fulham aren’t the best in terms of their xG creation and they sit 11th in the table on home form xG, although the goals they allow is a little better – they’re seventh lowest in the league. They’re averaging almost two a game on their own patch, but they do give up chances and have conceded 12 at home. I watched some of the highlights from the Brighton game and Brighton will probably feel like they should have done a bit better than the score line suggests. The first goal the Seagulls conceded was basically a gift of a pass from their own ‘keeper, for which Iwobi duly obliged, so as long as we avoid silly advantages like that, you’d hope we should have enough firepower to create chances. We’ve conceded eight away so far this season but when you think that we’ve played Villa, Chelsea, City (in which we were down to ten men), an in form Bournemouth (in which we were down to ten men), plus that weird game last weekend against West Ham, it does feel like if we have our first choice back line in there from the start, we can hopefully keep Fulham a little quiet. That means we have to see Big Gabi and Calafiori back and whilst Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on Friday about their availability, as I said yesterday I think at least one will be back. I suspect that might be Big Gabi, but hopefully Calafiori is back too because as decent as Zinchenko was, at home and against a United team who offered little threat going forward for most of the game, it feels a little different than today. That’s because whoever plays left back will probably be up against Iwobi on that right hand side and having bagged two on Thursday night and five so far this season, he’s going to be going in to this feeling pretty confident.

Marco Silva actually deployed him centrally against Brighton but broadly speaking he’s played wide right and I think that’s where he’ll be today. They’ll line up with Bassey and Diop as their centre halves, Robinson (who I’ve always been impressed with when I see him) and Castagne on their right hand side. And that’s where I think we need to see some joy. Saka against Robinson doesn’t always result in Bukayo coming out on top, but whoever plays wide left I’d fancy against Catstagne. I’d still go with Martinelli despite the fact it didn’t quite click for him on Wednesday, but if Trossard comes in then I’d be fine with that too. He had a bit of an off patch pre the international break, but I thought he was great against West Ham and then looked bright when coming off the bench against United.

You could argue that the rest of the team picks itself (Raya, Timber, Saliba, Rice, Odegaard, Havertz), but there might be a question in Mikel’s mind about who plays in that midfield. Fulham are a side who the stats suggest don’t launch it from Leno, but they do go long – they’re second behind Everton for long passes attempted over 30 yards, so that says to me they build from their defence and they look to get the ball long through willing runners – probably in to wide positions. Would having a Merino to press higher and try to win the pitch work better than having Rice in the left eight, so you drop Rice back in to the six? Fulham are also a side who sit third behind West Ham and Liverpool for having shots that have come from a defensive action by their own team. So in other words they create a far bit of their opportunities from defending, then moving the ball quickly – through longer passes – that lead to shots for them. It makes me wonder whether Arteta might opt for Partey and Rice as two players who will cover ground and breakdown those chances.

What we do need to see today is Arsenal showing intent and also having last season’s New Year’s Eve debacle not being repeated. We can’t have Arsenal looking like they’ve eaten too much of the left over Christmas pudding like last year. We have to control possession, we have to take chances, we need to build on chances if we do manage to go ahead. We went ahead on five minutes and it felt like it was going to be a nice way to round off the year, but we got sloppy and Fulham punished us with a quick transition and goal from Jimenez, then a pretty poor corner that we just didn’t deal with secured them the points. It was one of those games in which Nketiah started up front and basically didn’t do anything and I thought Rice had a poor one too. You’d hope that today it will be different with Havertz up top and one of Partey or Merino joining Rice and Odegaard in midfield and that extra bit of quality will – fingers crossed – prove that we can be better.

And we need to be. Margin for error is zero, we can’t afford to be dropping any points at all on this run and this need to be an Arsenal performance that builds on our last four games since the international break – all of which have been wins.

Let’s hope today is win number five.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.