Arsenal 3-0 Fulham: Finally! Goals, Clean Sheet & The UCL Semi Second Leg Awaits | AnaijaGunner
Exactly what the doctor ordered. Arsenal 3-0 Fulham. Goals. Clean sheet. Dominance. Then City dropped points on Monday night. Now Atletico Madrid come to the Emirates on Tuesday for the UCL Semi Final second leg with a place in the final on the line. This is it. The run-in just got very real.
Image Credit: Arsenal.com
Review Arsenal 3-0 Fulham: Where Did THAT Performance Come From?!
Exactly what the doctor ordered! Arsenal 3-0 Fulham!
Arsenal win check ✓ More than one goal scored check ✓ Clean sheet check✓
Arsenal can toy with your emotions I swear to god, small g is deliberate! Where did that performance come from? Reminiscent of our 2023/24 season where we were scintillating going forward with Kai Havertz leading the line and Ødegaard, Martinelli and Saka in imperious form. That is the Arsenal we know this team is capable of being. That is the Arsenal we have been waiting weeks to see again.
Arteta made a huge call. Five changes to the team that travelled to the Metropolitano, with Myles Lewis-Skelly starting in midfield for the first time ever as the most surprising tweak. Looking back at that decision now, it was an absolute masterstroke. Yeah I know, hindsight they say is always 20/20, but we can confidently say today's performance was not expected based on recent form. We hadn't played this well while also winning in weeks. From an attacking sense, it was a proper shift in momentum. I have to caveat that by saying Fulham were quite poor and I expect Marco Silva to be absolutely furious with his lads in the dressing room afterwards. But kudos to the gunners, we made them look ordinary. We made them look like a mid-table side with no answers. It was an all-round positive performance from front to back.
Trossard had his best game in a long while, finally looking like the player we know he can be. Saka gave us exactly what we had been missing all season, directness, creativity, end product. Gyokeres is now on 21 goals across all competitions with 14 in the EPL and more to come. Absolutely clinical when it mattered. Yes, his 2026 form has been impressive, but this weekends performance tops all.
My man of the match though, has to be Myles Lewis-Skelly. Slightly edging out Gyok for his calm and composed performance in midfield, having been on the bench for most of the season. I tip my hat off to him for that display. Mature beyond his years. Positionally disciplined. Quick in transition passes. Exactly what we needed in that midfield battle and he delivered in a massive game under serious pressure. Calafiori was unlucky not to be on the scoresheet. He was clearly offside for the first chance and his header was innocuously nodded over the bar by Leno. On another day he gets one or both of those. The lad has been brilliant since coming into the side and he deserves a goal.
This was Arsenal's 40th win across all competitions and a new club record that breaks the 39 wins from the legendary 2001/02 Invincibles season. 17th clean sheet in the league this season. What is not to like? Raya, Saliba, Gabriel, the entire backline rock solid once again. Arteta in his post-match press conference was asked why now for MLS in midfield and he was refreshingly honest. "I don't know, maybe I should have tried it earlier, maybe not." Such honesty is a welcome change from the usually tetchy responses when he feels his team selection is being questioned. Fair play to him for that. Now we do have a problem on our hands though. Who starts on Tuesday in midfield against Atletico Madrid? MLS or Zubi? That is a selection headache I am sure Mikel is happy to have. #COYG
#Title Run-In: One Week In Football Can Be A Very Long Time
One week in football, as they say, can be such a long time. Last week after the Newcastle 1-0 win it was all moans and groans. We needed goals yet the team failed to respond at the Emirates in the way fans would have liked. City played a relegated Burnley side and won 1-0 too in midweek, giving gloomy Gunners some faint hope that maybe, just maybe, they were feeling the pressure as well.
Arsenal then get a 1-1 draw at the Metropolitano where some argue we should have won but it was still a solid result to bring back to the Emirates. They follow that up with a 3-0 demolition of Fulham that silenced the critics, and then on Monday night Man City drop points in one of their outstanding games in hand at Everton's new Hill Dickenson Stadium. One cannot ask for a more pleasant Monday evening than that, even if you wish Everton had held on for the actual win rather than succombing to Doku's worldie for a draw. But you know what they say, points on the board over games in hand, ayee?
It has been such a wild season of ups and downs. Like, no one seems to be grabbing the title charge by the scruff of the neck to run away with things. Maybe the EPL is just that competitive now or maybe the league has gone up a level across the board, but either way it is incredibly hard to take your eyes off this title race. Bayern, PSG and Atletico get to rotate almost their entire starting XI in their domestic leagues but in the Premier League you dare not or a mid-table team slaps you in the face with a big fat L. Simple as that. Man City drawing at Everton is a massive swing though. It was one of the games I genuinely had them down to drop points in, but then again, it is Pep's City. You can never be sure. One might end up with egg on the face predicting against them. Thankfully I was right this time.
Three games to go for Arsenal. City have four more games. Both teams are level on points. Goal difference is in our favour. This is it. This is what it all comes down to. Winning all our remaining games guarrantees the #EPL title, can we do it? . Every single result from here on out matters. Every goal matters. Every clean sheet matters. There is no margin for error left for either side. Squeaky bum time #COYG
UCL Semi Final 2nd Leg Preview: A Final Awaits. Go And Seize It.
Arsenal welcome Atletico Madrid to the Emirates on Tuesday night for the second leg of the UEFA Champions League Semi Final. The tie is finely balanced at 1-1 despite Arsenal being favourites as the home team. You cannot count chickens with Diego Simeone involved. The man knows how to rally a battle cry and he will be scheming all sorts of tactical setups to try to make sure his lads are up for the fight of their lives.
In fact, both Champions League semi-final ties are finely balanced. PSG or Bayern for the final. Arsenal or Atletico for the final. It is that close. These are the margins we are dealing with at this stage of the competition. I just want to see an Arsenal side who have come to battle it out. If we play like we did against Fulham on the front foot, pressing high, attacking with intent and purpose then Jan Oblak's goal will be under siege all night. Arsenal just have to take the game to the team from Madrid. Forget about the win at the weekend. Park it. Focus entirely on the game at hand because a place in the Champions League Final, only the second in our entire history and the first in the Emirates era is right there for the taking, time for us to earn that right of passage.
And with that comes the opportunity to rewrite the Arsenal history books by doing what every pundit and rival fan would love to say we cannot do: lift the trophy. But you have to get past Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night first. One game at a time. With our injured players like Saka back in the starting lineup, Ødegaard and Kai making the bench, Mikel Arteta does have options now. Add in MLS's brilliant performance in midfield against Fulham plus the fact that the same MLS absolutely bossed Atletico in the group stage earlier this season, and Arteta genuinely has a selection headache on his hands. Zubi or MLS in midfield?
If you ask me? I would go with MLS. He needs to be drilled to stay disciplined on the ball though, look to release quick passes into Saka and Eze, and avoid drawing unnecessary fouls like he sometimes tends to do. Pair him with Rice sitting just in front of the defence and we should be fine against an Atletico midfield that may be technically better than Fulham's but does not have the physicality we can bring to bear on them.
Where Atletico are genuinely dangerous is in the fast breaks using the pace and agility of the their front three. Lookman had a poor game in front of goal last week at the Metropolitano — encore please, touch wood — and Álvarez just couldn't quite get things going even though he was a constant threat all through his 70 minutes on the pitch. I would detail Rice to marshal things at the base of the midfield with MLS further ahead to then release Saka or Eze quickly on the wings. That is where we get them. They are not exactly as solid at the back as the good old Atletico days of prime Simeone defensivness. Still good at defending, just not as dogged and impenetrable as they used to be.
Winning this game would ultimately give the Gunners a huge psychological boost going into the Premier League game on Sunday away at the Hammers. That fixture is shaping up to be a tough one after West Ham lost to Brentford at the weekend and will be desperate for points. But we cannot look too far ahead. We have a Champions League Semi Final second leg to navigate first.
One game. Ninety minutes. Possibly extra time and penalties (I'd hate that though). A place in the final on the line. The entire season has been building to this moment. Let's not bottle it now. Let's go out there, impose ourselves on Atletico Madrid, take the game by the scruff of the neck and book our place in that final.
Simple as that. No fear. No conservatism. Just go and win the game.
My team sheet would be slightly tweaked from the one that played at the weekend to accommodate a few changes. MLS keeps his place ahead of Zubi (Arteta starts Zubi), Mosquera starts over White.
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| #ArsVsAtm |
Before we go, a quick shout out to the Arsenal ladies for also getting to the Semis of this w=years, women UCL, they were knocked out by Lyon who got their pound of flesh this time. Take a bow Kim Little and the team, you may not have been able to defend your title but, you made the Arsenal proud. That's it from us here at #Anaijagunner HQ. Drop your score predictions and your starting XI in the comments below. Like and share the post. Enjoy the game wherever you are.....#COYG
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