Ahh man, I have a stinking hangover this morning, all caused by The Arsenal.
I’m in Portugal and, to try to completely forget about the stress of football, I asked the parents and The Management if we could go out and have a lovely lunchtime meal in Tavira, where my parents’ place is. They obliged. Two bottles of white and a couple of large Super Bocks later, and I’m heading back to their house to watch what was to transpire in N5 yesterday evening. The stress was such that the need for alcohol to dumb the senses went too strong, and I ended up drinking well into the night. Before the game, it was nerves, during the game it was nerves, after the game, it was drinking in celebration.
Because Arsenal were superb yesterday. This was easily the best performance of 2026 so far I think, and I include the win at the Toilet Bowl against The Scum, because they are terrible. Fulham are not. Marco Silva is an astute tactician, and I don’t think there would have been many Arsenal fans putting their pennies at the bookies on a 3-0 victory before the game yesterday. But here we are, the day after, and we get to talk about an Arsenal performance that will have every Arsenal fan merrily skipping their way through today as they go about their business.
Arteta rang some changes, as we expected, but I think the inclusion of Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield was not one that any of us thought we’d see. The absence of Odegaard clearly meant that Arteta needed somebody who had the technical ability to keep the ball, so he turned to Myles, and boy did our young Hale Ender deliver. I thought he was superb yesterday. He was able to wriggle his way through the Fulham midfield; he rotated with Rice superbly, he was controlled and calm in possession, and he fully deserved the big hug he got from his manager at the final whistle. We’re at a crunch point in the season, and at these times, sometimes you get performances from players you didn’t expect, and this was certainly one of those from MLS, for which I think we’re all very grateful.
But it wasn’t just Myles who stepped up against a Fulham side who had an outside chance of qualifying for Europe. Many players stepped up, I thought. As I talked about with James on the [Same Old Arsenal pod this morning,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksuvP_f4v_U) Trossard was really good yesterday, getting an assist for the third goal and as James reminded me, he could have had more if Gyokeres had’ve scored when in on goal when Leno saved his effort. Calafiori was back and unlucky not to score to make it 2-0, and Rice was his usual imperious self. But the two goal scorers will take most of the headlines at the top end of the pitch today.
At the beginning of the season, I always said that if Gyokeres gets 20 goals in all competitions, then he’s done his job. For £55million you aren’t going to get a Thierry Henry regen these days. It just doesn’t happen. So for that kind of money, you need a guy who will put the ball in the back of the net against a mid-table team, which is something we just didn’t do enough of last season, so his goal that set us on our way was exactly what the doctor ordered. It was a fine ball in from Saka, and what you want from your striker is to get in front of his man and into those spaces. The pass from Saka did all the heavy-lifting, but Gyokeres was there to profit, and boy, weren’t we all glad.
When the two combined for the second goal, I did sense this would be a good afternoon, so to have Gyokeres be the one assisting Saka felt right to me. There’s been a bit of talk about how these two players don’t seem to pass enough to each other, maybe that Saka doesn’t trust Gyokeres, but yesterday it felt like their combination together was enough to dispel any such rumours. Saka’s finish felt very ‘on brand’ for the forward. He’s a guy who sometimes makes the very difficult look so easy. When Gyokeres reversed-passed the ball into him, he still had plenty to do, but his finish to Leno’s near post was cool, calm and collected. And needed.
And although Saka wasn’t involved in the third goal – from Leo to Big Vik for the header – there was something in the commentary that Alan Smith said that has stayed with me: “he’s had such better service today”. Both Trossard and Saka put chances on a plate for the Swede, and he reacted exactly as you want your centre forward to – with goals. That’s 21 goals this season, with a few games still to play, and if he gets himself to 25 goals, you have to say this has been an excellent season. There are times in which he looks a little rough around the edges, his control sometimes lets him down, but when he’s put in the penalty box with opportunities to score, he does it. Last season, we missed that and our title challenge never really materialised. This season, we’re going to take it to the wire, and ultimately, you have to say that Gyokeres has done his part.
Three goals in the first half meant Arteta could rotate out some key players, which will have been music to his ears to see those players all doing the business early, so we could bring the likes of Saka and Rice off to preserve their legs for Tuesday night. On a weekend in which Diego Simeone has basically given his players the time off, Arsenal couldn’t afford that, but the fact they could afford to bring guys off with 30 minutes still to play is huge. And I think we’re all relieved ahead of Tuesday’s semi-final.
There’s still more work to do. We all know this. But waking up this Sunday morning to a comprehensive Arsenal win feels good. Real good.
I’ll be back tomorrow as we start to look ahead to another big one in just 48 hours.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, boys and girls.