Positives and Negatives: Fulham 1-1 Arsenal

Jack Stroudley looks back at our point at home to title-chasing Arsenal.

Fulham continued to weave their way through a tricky run with another point on the board, this time at home to title-chasing Arsenal. Once again it was another valiant showing from Marco Silva’s side, but what are the main takeaways from the game?

Positives

The Thames Barrier

This will feel more like a point gained rather than two dropped and a lot of that is down to our structure for large portions of the game. I thought (particularly in the first half) we were able to really limit Arsenal to half-chances from open play, frustrating them and particularly Martin Odegaard. Antonee Robinson did really well dealing with the Partey, Saka, Odegaard triangle (especially given Traore’s lack of tracking during parts of the game).

As Arsenal continued to control the ball and grow into the game cracks began to appear. Thankfully, Bernd Leno was on hand time and time again to stop those efforts hitting the back of the net. Given we are Andersen-less it was a very good performance from a defensive point of view and something we’ll need to emulate next week at Anfield (albeit without Calvin Bassey who is now suspended).

Berge baby Berge

70% of the earth is covered by water, the remaining 30% is covered by Sander Berge. The Norwegian was absolutely everywhere on Sunday putting out fires, looking to transition and being an overall nuisance for our North London visitors. Six tackles, eight 50/50s won, only five misplaced passes and a 100% dribble success rate sums up the type of afternoon Berge had at Craven Cottage. As games go by he’s showing more and more why we paid £20m for him in the summer, if he keeps this upwards trajectory it’s going to feel like a bargain.

Si Señor

Jakub Kiwior must absolutely hate Raul Jimenez, that’s two seasons on the bounce the Mexican has hassled him at Craven Cottage. Raul was back to his bullish self on Sunday constantly bullying Arsenal defenders, fighting for every ball and scoring the opportunity that came his way. Jimenez is a confidence player and now the hypothetical monkey is off his back hopefully he’ll go on a bit of a run going into the new year.

Negatives

Slow out the blocks

Following William Saliba’s equaliser in the 52nd minute that’s now seven goals in fourteen games we have conceded this season between the second-half kicking off and the hour-mark, it’s something that seriously needs addressing at this point. Why are we slow starters? If Fulham are serious about pushing towards the upper echelons’ of the table then this is something that needs to be nipped in the bud quickly.

Chris Kavanagh

You’ll notice that I like to have some sort of pun or silly title for each point, I think that nothing is sillier than referee Christopher Kavanagh who was the biggest negative of the day. I’m never usually one for belittling referees and constantly criticising, I feel over the course of the season you get the rub of the green but today was laughable.

Every single 50/50 seemed to go in the way of the visitors, whenever an Arsenal player felt the wind they’d drop like a sack of potatoes and be awarded a foul, cards were being handed out to Fulham like it was a Christmas party while Arsenal seemed to get away with murder time and time again. It was incredibly frustrating to watch, it was so apparent that Arsenal were using the “dark arts” to their advantage, it is slightly funny though that it happened to be the man from Old Trafford gate who was falling for the bait.