Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was left lamenting his side's inability to take care of business against Fulham.
Arsenal's positive momentum, built over the last three weeks, suffered a hit after being held 1-1 by Fulham at Craven Cottage.
While the Gunners did everything to win the game except score a second goal, had Gabriel Martinelli been onside in the game's dying stages, Arsenal would have likely secured all three points instead of settling for one. It has a feeling of "what if" for the Gunners.
William Saliba got on the score sheet as the Gunners' efficiency from set-pieces was again on show, but this was a game Arsenal "should" have won given how dominant it was...and Mikel Arteta knows it.
"Gutted that we didn’t win it, because I think we deserved to win from the beginning to the end. We did almost everything that we had to do to win it," Arteta said via arsenal.com. "But this is the quality of the opposition, with one chance they score a goal. And then the margins of the league as well. For millimetres we could have been sitting here with three points after a really strong and dominant performance against a really good team."
Fulham FC v Arsenal FC - Premier League
Given that Liverpool's game against Everton was postponed, and Manchester City again dropped points, it was the perfect chance for Arsenal to take advantage of that, and while it huffed and puffed, Arteta's side just couldn't get the breakthrough despite dominating the hosts.
Of course, we could circle back to Martinelli being offside in the game's final few minutes, but in truth, the Gunners should have taken care of business here.
Having 12 shots to two and managing 67 percent possession, the Gunners had the ball, and had chances to win the game, and in truth, should have.
While the performance was encouraging, and a point is better than nothing, we hope we don't look back on this result in a few months and wonder "what if" when it comes to Arsenal's seasons.
So often games are decided by fine margins, and who knows, had Martinelli remained onside, there's a very real chance that Arsenal wins this game.
The Gunners will now have to pick themselves up for the visit of Monaco in the Champions League midweek, and will not want the sting of this draw to linger too much longer.
The performance was good, and the Gunners fought hard to create a goal-scoring opportunity late, only to have it disallowed—no wonder Arteta is "gutted" with the result.