Arsenal dominated Fulham en route to a 1-0 win, a scoreline that doesn’t do the Gunners much justice. Arsenal had a goal rightly called back for a slight offside. They had an awarded penalty taken away by VAR and another shout not given. Fulham did not have a shot on target. The Gunners controlled the match and were deserving winners. The three points keep Arsenal atop the Premier League table and take the Gunners to 7 points better than equivalent fixtures last season. For what it’s worth, the gap
to Liverpool last season was 10 points — Arsenal have nearly made that up already by picking up points this year that they dropped last.
Fulham had the better start to the match, firing six shots (again, none on target) to Arsenal’s one. Around 20 minutes into the first half, the Gunners turned the table to the tune of seven shot attempts for to one against. Neither side could find the back of the net, though. Well, Arsenal did through Riccardo Calafiori’s wonderful spinning shot into the top corner, which, alongside the long diagonal and control-then-pass from Leandro Trossard, would have been a magnificent goal. But the Italian was correctly flagged for being offside — he was just ahead of the ball.
Other than that his contribution to that move, Leandro Trossard had a first half to forget. He, along with Ebere Eze, were quite loose in possession and easily / carelessly gave the ball away a couple times apiece. At halftime, I observed that Arsenal needed more from both of them. And they got it.
Early in the second half, Eze set up Trossard with a lovely cross, but the Belgian got his shot all wrong. Trossard made up for his profligacy a few minutes later, kneeing home a corner (of course) at the back post after Gabriel had flicked it on at the near post. If you catch the replay, check Gabriel’s reaction to knowing he got the assisting touch — he was pumped up. As ever, the ball was expertly delivered by Bukayo Saka.
Arsenal’s star winger had a fantastic match. At 0-0 in the second half, it felt as if he decided “we aren’t dropping points and I’m going to personally see to it.” He nearly created a goal before the corner, beating his man and whipping a ball into the six-yard box that was nearly an own goal then cleared off the line by a defender.
At 1-0, Saka was awarded a penalty after dancing away from just-subbed-on Kevin, who took him down with a rather wild challenge from the side / behind. Unfortunately, VAR got involved. The referee went to the monitor and overturned the decision on the field, for the second time in three matches. Like the overturn in the Newcastle match, it was determined that the defender touched the ball, which the referee and VAR felt was enough to negate the foul.
There are oh so many problems with both VAR reviews, but we’ll focus on today’s. First, a note about process. The referee (I’m assuming) did not see that Kevin touched the ball. That satisfies the “clear and obvious error” standard. Once they make that determination, the referee goes to the monitor to re-referee the incident. As the ref said to the stadium, he determined that Kevin’s touch on the ball made the contact with Bukayo Saka a legal challenge and not a penalty.
As I see it (and I don’t think this part is open to debate, honestly), Kevin makes contact with his knee to Saka’s knee / thigh first, before making contact with the ball. That happened first. After he goes through his opponent from the side / behind, he gets the slightest of touches to the ball, a touch he probably doesn’t make but for the fact that he makes contact with Saka’s leg, pushing him out of the way and affecting his movement towards the ball. After brushing the ball, he completes his challenge and takes Bukayo Saka to ground.
For me, the knee-to-thigh contact, on it’s own, is enough to call a foul. A challenge from the side / behind that takes an opponent out is also enough to call a foul. Both of those things are independent of whether the defender touched the ball. Touching the ball doesn’t mean you cannot also foul an opponent. See e.g. William Saliba touching the ball with his head before making contact with the opponent and being called for a penalty last season. It’s troubling to me that referees seem to believe that “getting the ball” means you did not, perhaps cannot, commit a foul.
The totality of the challenge is also a foul, too. Even if you don’t think that the knee-to-thigh contact is enough, when you combine that with where the challenge came from, that it went through Saka to get to the ball, and in doing so, took him out, that’s a foul! What are we doing here!? When did it become okay to go through an opponent to win the ball?
Even if on process VAR didn’t do anything wrong, the outcome feels wrong and out of line with what VAR is supposed to be and do. It does not feel like the challenge on Bukayo Saka was clearly and obviously not a foul. I’m playing a bit fast and loose, I know. But we’ve been told that VAR exists to correct significant errors. That they don’t want to re-referee the game and that there is an even higher bar for intervention this season. Overturning that call feels like it run afoul of all three of those things.
It was very much one of those the call on the field should have stood situations, thrown into stark relief by a non-penalty award earlier in the second half. Viktor Gyokeres spun his defender, who then rather clumsily collided with him and caught his foot. The Arsenal attacker lost his balance, tried to keep his feet, but eventually stumbled over. I think that was a foul. You can reasonably argue that it wasn’t. VAR didn’t get involved. The call on the field stood. Fine. That is how it is supposed to work.
Brief aside: if you want attackers to fight to stay on their feet, you need to give more penalties when there is contact (read: they were probably fouled), try not to go over, but then do despite their best efforts.
Anyway. Gyokeres had another solid game. He forced two good saves from Bernd Leno, without whom the scoreline would have been ugly for Fulham. Big Vik’s movement was good, he battled with defenders, and made a nuisance of himself. The goals are going to come. He’s doing the right things and getting chances.
Fortunately, neither of the decisions that went against Arsenal ended up mattering. It’s much nicer to analyze them knowing they weren’t game-deciding moments. This is the type of match Arsenal didn’t win last season. To be fair, they didn’t lose many of these types of games either, but when the competition are winning matches, draws are functionally losses.
Last season, this was a 1-1 (or a 0-0 or even a frustrating, late loss). But not this season. On another day, Arsenal win this match by 2 or 3 goals. They created enough for it. More importantly (and I’m repeating myself), they held Fulham without a shot on target. Arsenal have gone nearly five hours of Premier League playing time since conceding a shot on target. Even if the attacking output isn’t where you’d like it to be, it has gotten better this season. And it will continue to do so. Gyokeres is going to find his scoring form. They’re going to get more of the “wow” factor from Eze. If you go off today’s magnificent performance, Bukayo Saka seems to have found his magic. Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke will be back soon. Martin Ødegaard will be back in December.
Arsenal can and will do more offensively. And if the defending stays the same, which they’ve shown themselves capable of doing…watch. out.
